


Things Lost and Found Along the Way.

by silver_sun



Series: The spaces series [2]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-29
Updated: 2011-08-29
Packaged: 2017-10-23 05:31:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 34,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/246773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silver_sun/pseuds/silver_sun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to The Spaces In Between.  Travelling back to Earth with Ianto, Owen and Toshiko on board the freighter Ariadne, Jack has growing concerns that the glove he'd used to bring them into this universe has somehow affected him. He's still trying to deal with these worries on his own when they receive a distress call from another ship. A call which is about to change everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Title: Things Lost and Found Along The Way (1/11)  
Rating: pg13  
Characters: Jack. AU Ianto, Owen and Tosh. AU Owen/Tosh, past Jack/Ianto, very slowly developing Jack/AU Ianto  
Contains: Serious illness of an alien variety.  
Summary: Travelling back to Earth with Ianto, Owen and Toshiko on board the freighter Ariadne, Jack has growing concerns that the glove he'd used to bring them into this universe has somehow affected him. He's still trying to deal with these worries on his own when they receive a distress call from another ship. A call which is about to change everything.  
A/N: This is a sequel to The Spaces in Between, which was a Children of Earth sort of fix it. I'm hoping to update this once a week.

* * *

The faint rumbles and vibration of the ship's engines are a familiar and comforting presence that remind Jack of carefree days long past. So it has been easy to settle into the life on board the stellar freighter Ariadne for the two week journey that will put them within easy teleportation range of Earth.

The Ariadne is a large ship with a crew almost too small to operate her. The captain, Celesti Bodona, making up for the short fall in labour by offering cheap travel in return for people willing to work their passage.

Four days into the journey, and three into helping move and package the bulk cargo into smaller, deliverable quantities, Jack is starting to wonder if he should have just paid the extra.

Heaving another crate on to the grav pallet, Jack can feel his shirt clinging damply to him, and sweat trickling down the back of his neck.

Ever since waking up in the hospital following using the glove to bring Owen and Tosh through into this universe Jack knows that he's been tiring more easily. Where once he knows that he would have been able to go for days without sleep now after as little as one day awake he's needing to rest. It's not just for a few minutes either, it's a solid seven or eight hours of sleep.

It had been a novelty for the first couple of nights, and it had been easy to write it off as an after effect of the energy drain. Now, the best part of a week later, it has lost its appeal and has become an unspoken source of worry.

The only conclusion that he's so far come to is that the glove has done something to him. He's run what scans he can with his vortex manipulator to try and find out if it's still drawing energy from him as the one that had connected Gwen to Suzie had done. All the readings have so far come back negative, leaving Jack increasingly frustrated by it all.

He wishes that Gwen were around, or at least easily contactable, so that he could ask her how she'd felt after her connection to Suzie was broken, if she'd felt more tired than usual afterwards, or that he'd at least thought to ask her about it at the time. But he'd been so caught up in Suzie's betrayal and his emerging relationship with Ianto that he'd been content that with both Rhys and Owen to look after her Gwen would be alright.

It all seems to heartless now. He can't even remember if he'd asked her if she was okay.

You never asked any of them, not when it really mattered, not when it still could have made a difference. Accusatory thoughts run through Jack's mind, grief and guilt piling up in their wake.

Consumed by these thoughts, Jack works without paying attentions to what he's doing, piling crates on top of each other, the ache in his muscles feeling like a just penance for his repeated lack of care.

This continues until he picks up a crate that is heavier than the rest, and his grip on it slips. The crate hits his knee hard as it falls, before landing on the floor and bursting open, scattering machine parts across the deck.

Stumbling, Jack sits down on the edge of the grav pallet, clutching his knee.

"You okay?" Pol, the ship's storeman shouts over from where he is supervising the work.

"Yeah," Jack replies through gritted teeth. His knee is throbbing unmercifully, but he's relieved that there is no sign of blood on his clothes to suggest that skin is broken. Having to explain rapidly healing injuries is something he can do without.

"You look done in," Pol says walking over to him. "Take a break, there'll still be plenty of work here tomorrow."

Jack nods. Sore and exhausted he's tempted to go and find Owen and ask him to run a full check on him in case there's something that he's missed in his own scans. But this Owen doesn't know him, doesn't know what's normal for him, so Jack quickly dismisses it as pointless.

Pol frowns, his grey-blue skin wrinkling, making it look more creased than usual. "You're a good worker, don't get me wrong, but your mind is all over the place."

"You're psychic?" Jack asks, concerned at what Pol might have seen or heard.

"Nah." Pol wipes his oily fingers on his boiler suit. "Well not enough for it to count any way. I just get a few feelings sometimes. It's why Celesti keeps me around; we haven't been tricked into a truly crap cargo in years."

Jack manages a small smile. He knows that it's not the only reason; it's no secret aboard the Ariadne that Celesti and Pol are married.

"My advice, lad?" Pol says, putting a hand on Jack's shoulder. "Go to the breakroom, get yourself and drink, then you get some rest."

Jack nods, his throat feeling tight. The gesture, being called lad, reminds him of the Doctor, his Doctor, the one with a battered leather jacket, the one who'd understood only too well what happens in war and the choices and sacrifices that have to be made, the one who'd understood his nightmares and who'd turned his life around.

"Come on." Pol gives Jack a hand up from where he's sitting on the crates.

"Yeah," Jack says, limping away, needing to be somewhere else before his already ragged emotions get the better of him.

Pol watches him goes, then shaking his head, mutters, "Poor bastard." Before going back to work.

Ianto is sitting at one of the tables in the breakroom, a stack of shipping receipts and a data slate in front of him, as Jack limps in. He looks, his expression becoming one of concern as he sees Jack. "What happened?"

"Argument with a box." Jack sits down with a relieved sigh. The walk across a couple of decks to the breakroom has been uncomfortable to say the least. "I won."

There's a faint smile on Ianto's face that is as much amused as it is wistful. "A great victory, I'm sure," he says dryly, as he starts to gather up everything that he's been working on, getting ready to leave.

Jack frowns. It's a repeat of what has happened just about every time that he's been alone with Ianto since the Ariadne broke orbit. "You're avoiding me."

"Yes." Ianto looks down, not bothering to try and deny it.

"Why?" Jack leans forward, trying to get a better look at Ianto's expression. "If I've done something to upset you, you tell me."

"You haven't," Ianto says wearily, putting everything he's picked up back down in a heap on the table. "This isn't about you, well not completely about you. It's Cardiff, the family that your Ianto has there, had there." He sighs, running a hand through his hair, before adding miserably, "It's everything really."

"What are you saying?" Jack asks, a sense of foreboding setting in.

"I don't think I can go to Cardiff or work with you." Ianto gets up, looking like he's come to a decision. "I've thought about it. Actually I don't think I've thought about anything else, and I just can't see a way that it's going to work." He sighs again. "I look at you and sometimes all I can see is him, and then you say or do something and then he's gone, and it feels like losing I'm him all over again."

"Ianto, please."

"I'm tired, Jack. I can't deal with any of this, not yet, not if I want to stay sane." There's a haunted look in Ianto's eyes. "Don't push me into this."

"I can see if London needs more staff, or Glasgow, if you still want to work for Torchwood," Jack says, fighting to keep his voice neutral. It feels like it's taking everything he's got not to tell Ianto that he has to stay, that he can't lose him, but he knows that if he does that all he'll succeed in doing will be to drive Ianto away. At least this way, he hopes, they'll still be friends.

"Thank you. It's better for both us like this." Ianto's voice wavers and he turns away, getting ready to leave.

"Stay." Jack gets up unsteadily, his knee throbbing. "We should talk about this."

"I can't, I'm sorry." Ianto's voice cracks, and he quickly walks away, leaving Jack leaning against the door looking down the corridor after him long after he's gone.

Sat on the edge of his narrow bunk, Jack removes his braces, before pushing down his trousers to get a better look at his knee.

It's swollen, the bruise a vivid purple where the crate had hit it, fading to a sickly yellow-green at the edges. Jack frowns, prodding the edge of the discoloured skin. It's healing, and it's definitely healing faster than a normal human would, however it's still nowhere near as fast as he's come to expect for himself.

Jack knows that the speed at which he heals minor, non life threatening injures has always varied, although that's usually in connection with how recently and frequently he's died. With lots of recent deaths meaning slower healing. He's not died for weeks though, so he knows he can't put it down to that.

He wonders if it had been a more serious injury whether it would have healed faster like it always used to do. What if he'd died, how long it would take him to come back? What if it was days like it had been after Abbadon? Would anybody believe he'd come back? Would they freeze him and take him back to Earth to bury, or would they just jettison his body into space? What if they cremated him?

Jack shivers, feeling sick at the thought of just how much it would hurt to regrow his body from that, and whether it would even be possible. Feeling every excruciating moment of his nerves, skin and bones reforming after the explosion of the Hub had been the single most painful revival he's lived through, and it's something that he never wants to have to experience again.

Rubbing a hand across his eyes, Jack tries to blot out the unpleasant memories that are crowding in.

Normally, he knows, this is when he'd be looking company, somebody warm and willing to help chase the darkness away. Only there's not really anybody on board the Ariadne who'd be interested, and he doesn't feel inclined to flirt even if there were.

Exhausted, and feeling very alone, Jack strips of the rest of his clothes and lays down on his bunk. Closing his eyes, he listens to the faint hum of the ship, the mindless drone of it helping drown out his own thoughts until he eventually falls asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Morning, or at least the time that has been designated as morning on board the Ariadne, seems to come all too soon. Jack is woken up by Kelda, the ship's engineer, and for today cook as well, announcing over the ship's intercom system that everybody should come and get some breakfast while it's still hot and hopefully edible. 

Lying in his bunk, Jack looks up at the riveted metal plates of the low ceiling and wonders if today is likely to be any better than yesterday. Somehow he doubts it. 

It's not a good enough reason to just stay in bed, although some days it does have a certain appeal. He's hungry though, and after a moment he gets up. 

His knee looks and feels a lot better, and Jack suspects that by the end of the day it will be full healed. It still not the level of healing he'd expect, but it is reassuring. The fears of last night seem distant now, tiredness having grown them out of all proportion. 

After taking a few minutes to get washed and dressed, Jack leaves his room. 

He is most of the way to the breakroom when he sees Ianto. 

Standing in front of one of the small portholes that are sparsely spaced along the length of the corridor, Ianto watches the stars passing by with a melancholy expression on his face. 

"I'm sorry about yesterday," Ianto says, turning to face Jack as he approaches. "I shouldn't have run out like that. You were being fair very about it, and I was unprofessional." 

"You don't have to apologise." Jack walks over to him, hoping that Ianto initiating the conversation rather than leaving as soon as he saw him is a good sign. 

"Perhaps not. I've not been sleeping very well lately," Ianto says, leaning back against the wall. "It's not much of an excuse for my behaviour. It can't be any easier for you than it is for me." 

Jack doesn't answer. He doesn't want to have to tell Ianto that he's been so preoccupied with trying to work out what the energy transfer glove might have done to him that considering how Ianto, Owen and Tosh are going to manage with being on an Earth that isn't their own, and potential meeting people who knew their counterparts in the universe hasn't featured much in his thoughts. 

"I still need to tell Owen and Tosh that I'm not going to stay in Cardiff with them," he says quietly, sounding sorry that he's going to have to do this to his friends. "I don't want them to think that it's your fault, that you're pushing me away. It's no one's apart from mine." 

"No one's getting blamed," Jack says firmly. 

"All the same, I need to be the one to tell them." Ianto digs his hands into his pockets, looking defensive. "I don't need you to defend my decisions to them or anyone. I can take care of myself." 

"I never said you couldn't," Jack says, hoping that Ianto isn't about to walk away from him again. 

That same kind of independence had been just one of the things that had drawn him to his Ianto. That and the fact that no matter what happened or what life threw at him Ianto always managed to keep going, and that despite everything he'd seen never stopped believing that somehow things could be right again. He'd been like Gwen in that, it was what had made them such firm friends. Ianto had never just been the cute guy in a suit, sure it had helped, but he'd been so very much more. 

Lost in memories for a moment, Jack jumps as Ianto puts a hand on his arm. 

"It creeps up on you sometimes, doesn't it?" Ianto says, a knowing look in his eyes. "The memories." 

Jack nods, not trusting his voice. He's got as many, if nor more, good memories than bad, but sometimes it doesn't seem to help. 

Ianto smiles sadly. "People always say it gets better with time." 

"Well I've got a whole lot of that." Jack manages a half hearted smile. 

Suddenly the deck beneath their feet seems to vibrate as the noise of the ship's engines increases, the Ariadne shaking violently for a moment before returning to normal. 

Rushing back to the porthole, Ianto looks out. "The solar sails, they're changing direction." 

Before Jack can ask if he can see anything else Celesti's voice comes over the ships intercom. _"Sorry about that folks, breaking is getting sticky again and the manoeuvring thrusters are knackered. Any way we've just got an SOS on the subspace priority band, no details but it sounds bad. We're the nearest ship for a few hundred thousand miles so it's up to us. So we're-"_

The intercom crackles static and then makes a popping noise like it's been hit before they can here Celesti say,  _"-piece of shit, might as well have tin cans and string."_

Ianto laughs."I know that feeling." 

" _We'll be rendezvousing with the Meridian Star in four hours, in the mean time get some food, we could be in for a long day. Once you're done I want volunteers to check the med supplies, enviro suits and spare parts store. I'm going to try to get some more info from the 'Star about what's wrong, and what a cruise liner is doing out here at the arse end of nowhere."_

"Are you going to volunteer?" Ianto asks after a moment, once they are sure that Celesti's message is over. 

"Yeah," Jack says quickly. It'll give him something to do other than think, because having too much time to dwell on things, especially with the sort of thoughts that he's been having lately has definitely not been a good thing. 

"I suppose we should get something to eat then," Ianto says, 

"Who knows, we might even be able to recognise what it is today." The food hasn't been bad, just rather alien, even to Jack's tastes. 

"Maybe." Ianto laughs. "But I'm not holding out any hope." 

Tosh gives Ianto a curious and slightly concerned look as he arrives with Jack for breakfast, before waving them over to the table where she and Owen are sitting. 

"I'll be glad to get to Earth," Owen grumbles, pushing his breakfast round his plate with fork. "Nothing that purple should be edible." 

"Oh I don't know," Jack says sitting down with them. "I knew-" 

"Is this story going to put us off our food?" Owen interrupts. 

Jack thinks for a moment then says, "Maybe. Depends what you think of alien meat." 

"I think we should probably save it until we've finished eating," Ianto says, helping himself to the bread and purple scrambled egg like mixture that in the serving dish in the middle of the table. 

"You might be right." Jack smiles, then gets himself some food. 

Looking round, Jack can see that most of the Ariadne's crew are in the breakroom. Celesti is sitting at one of the other tables with Pol, discussing interplanetary salvage laws. Wearing a worn tan coloured overall similar to Pol's, but with an equally battered short military jacket over the top, she reminds Jack of some of the old freighter captains that used to put it at the spaceport on Boeshane. 

While Kelda is leaning through the serving hatch talking to Orvis, the Ariadne's security and hired muscle, who, at nearly seven foot tall including his horns and with skin that looks like well weathered bark, Jack thinks, would make most people think twice about picking a fight. 

"How was engineering?" Ianto asks Tosh, as he pours her another mug of tea from the from the oversize pot on the table. 

"Amazing," Tosh says enthusiastically. "Kelda talked me through the basics on how the stellar wind particle energy transfer relays works. It's brilliant, the possibilities it opens up for long term power sources." 

"Here we go again," Owen says glumly. 

"Owen!" Tosh gives him an irritated look. 

"You told me all about it last night." He pouts, the adds in a put upon tone. "When I was trying to read." 

"That wasn't the sort of book you look at for the writing." 

Owen thinks for a moment and then says more as a suggestion, "anatomical research." 

"It was not," Tosh says sounding amused. "It was alien porn." 

"You were looking at it too," Owen says defensively. 

Ianto drinks his tea, trying not to laugh. 

"I didn't say it wasn't interesting, and it was very educational." She smiles at Owen, then leans over to whisper something in his ear. Owen's eyes widen and he nearly knocks his mug on the floor. 

It almost feels like he's sat back in the Hub with his team again, the good natured banter and teasing between Ianto, Owen and Tosh reminding him of happier days now long gone. 

Don't get too used to it. The thought springs unwanted into Jack's mind. As soon as you're back on Earth Ianto will be off. Then how long will it be before something gets to Owen or Toshiko, or maybe it will be Gwen this time? 

Jack closes his eyes, the food tasting like ash in his mouth. The conversations around him falling back to become a mindless drone of noise, until Owen says loudly and indignantly, "I don't. Tosh, tell him I don't." 

Tosh gives him a mischievous smile."Penrhyn circus, that's all I'm saying." 

"That's not fair." Owen protests. "You were supposed to back me up." 

"And iup/i is definitely what happened there." There's a suggestive hint in Tosh's voice, and her and Owen stare at each other for a moment, before they start laughing. 

"Are you alright?" Ianto asks, while Owen and Tosh are distracted. 

"I'm fine." It doesn't sound very convincing, and from the look on Ianto's face Jack is sure that he doesn't believe him. 

Quickly finishing his tea, Jack ignores the remainder of his food, then says, "Got a few things I need to sort out before we go save this liner." It's a ridiculous excuse, as he doesn't have anything that needs doing and he suspects that Ianto knows it. 

"I suppose I'll see you later then," Ianto says reluctantly, as Jack gets up. 

Leaving Ianto to talk to Owen and Tosh, Jack leaves the breakroom. He wonders if Ianto will use the opportunity to tell them that he's not planning on staying in Cardiff, and if he does whether they'll decide that they want to go wherever Ianto does. 

"Hey, Harkness!" Celesti calls out as she follows him out into the corridor. 

Jack smiles at her disarmingly, any of the uncertainty about what she wants with him is quickly hidden. "Call me Jack." 

Celesti laughs. "You don't need to flirt with me, you're not in trouble. I want your advice." 

"On what?" Jack asks, surprised and a little curious that she'd want his opinion on anything. After all to her he's just another passenger that came aboard a few days ago. 

"On boarding the Meridian Star if the situation over there has really gone arse up." Celesti nods at Jack to follow her and then starts walking again. 

"What makes you think I'd know any better than you?" 

"You signed in as a captain." She looks at Jack intently for a moment, then continues, "You're not a freighter or cruise ship captain, I'd bet my life on that. No, you're military, and you've seen combat." She absently rubs an old, faded burn on her neck. "It's there in your eyes, all the things you'd wished you'd been able to stop and couldn't, the friends and lives lost." 

"I could say the same about you," Jack says, not entirely comfortable about where this conversation is going. There are too many things in his past that he regrets, and which he's not about to start sharing with anyone. 

"I served mostly in peace time." She gives him a tight smile. "Wars cost money and if there's one thing those in charge down on Sto hate it's spending so much a copper credit on anything but pleasure for themselves." 

"War's not always the answer," Jack says wearily. He's seen enough conflicts through the years to be sure of that. Killing is another matter, killing where and when necessary, especially to stop further bloodshed hasn't been something he's ever really had a problem with. 

"Maybe not. But buying people's silence with money or a bullet because it's cheaper than letting people find out about massacres or whole colony worlds that have been decimated?" The look Celesti gives him challenges him to contradict her. "You're not ever going to convince me that's right." 

"I wouldn't try," Jack says. He's not particularly familiar with the political or military situation on Sto, but politicians and generals playing chess with peoples lives he's seen on enough worlds and centuries that he doesn't surprise him. 

"I didn't think you would." She stops outside the door to the bridge. "I've got a few ideas, but I wouldn't mind a second opinion." 

"Sure." If there is even the smallest possibility that they are about to get into a dangerous situation Jack wants to be part of it – sitting around while other people make the decisions isn't something that he's ever been good at. Apart from that it feels good to have something to concentrate on that isn't connected with either his apparently faulty healing ability or the increasingly complicated situation with Ianto. 

"Anything come through?" Celesti asks as she walks in, heading for the 3D holographic display charting the Ariadne's position relative to the Meridian Star. 

"Nothing yet." At the controls Vran pilots the ship, making manual adjustments to the plotted course, her multiple tentacled arms moving across the banks of controls with ease. 

"There's been no response to any hails?" Jack asks, apprehension growing slightly. 

"Nothing." Celesti punches a few keys on the control panel next to the display. "Just the same automated distress call repeated over and over." 

_This is the Nova Line's Empress class liner, Meridian Star, requesting urgent assistance. Location coordinates, Fodai star system, grid section 73-13-94. This is the Nova Line's Empress class liner, Meridian Star, requesting urgent assistance. Location coordinates Fodai star system, grid section 73-13-95. This is the Nova-"_

Celesti mutes the transmission, the toneless, impassive computerised voice giving the message falling silent. "Doesn't sound good, does it?" 

"No," Jack agrees. A passenger liner, especially one providing first class travel, should, short of something pretty disastrous, have enough crew that somebody should be answering the comms. 

"Cel," Vran calls over. "I've just got the reply back from Nova Lines, they say the Meridian Star was sold off a while back, so it's not their problem" 

"Well ain't that just great," Celesti says watching the position of the ships change fractionally on the 3D chart. "Makes a bit more sense why they're out here though, they could be heading out to the ship yards in Polpaxi to get refitted or broken down." 

"Something still doesn't seem right." Jack wonders if it's too long working for Torchwood that has him always expecting the worst, he's sure there must have been a time once, years ago, when he would have viewed the prospect of exploring mysterious space liner with eager anticipation. 

"I know what you mean. It doesn't seem like a trap though, it's too damn random." Celesti drums her fingers against the edge of the console, the two that are missing on her left hand making for a slightly of beat rhythm. "There's no way they could know who'd pick up the distress call." 

"Unless they don't care." Jack knows that's not likely, but he's seen and heard a lot of unlike things in his life. 

"Assume the worse, hope for the best," Celesti says with some amusement. "I want people who know which end of a gun is which to go over in the first group, just in case. You want in?" 

"Wouldn't miss it." If there's going to be trouble, Jack wants to know what's going on, and be in a position to stop it. 

"Guess we're not going know any more until we dock with the 'Star and get some readings," Celesti says, checking the projected rendezvous time. "We've got a while until we get there, so do what you need to to get ready, and I'll give everybody a shout when we're ready to dock." 

Realising that Celesti is bringing their discussion to a close, Jack says, "I'll be waiting." Then heads back to his room. 

 

 


	3. Things Lost and Found Along the Way Chapter 3

**Title:** Things Lost and Found Along The Way (3/11)  
 **Rating** : pg13  
 **Characters/Pairings:** Jack. AU Ianto, Owen and Tosh. Owen/Tosh, and eventually Jack/Ianto  
 **Word Count:** this part 3k (Total so far 8k/approx 22k)  
 **Contains:** Serious illness of an alien variety.  
 **Summary:** Travelling back to Earth with Ianto, Owen and Toshiko on board the freighter Ariadne, Jack has growing concerns that the glove he'd used to bring them into this universe has somehow affected him. He's still trying to deal with these worries on his own when they receive a distress call from another ship. A call which is about to change everything.  
 **A/N:** This is a sequel to The Spaces in Between. Which was a CoE sort of fix it, and as such won't fit with Miracle Day canon in any way. I hope to update this weekly.

* * *

The hours until they reach the Meridian Star pass slowly and uneventfully, with any attempts at communication with the liner failing to elicit a response.

Docking goes with the liner goes smoothly, despite there being no assistance from the Meridian Star, Vran piloting the Ariadne into position with ease.

Once they are docked, everybody except Vran, who is still on the bridge of the Ariadne, gathers at the airlock that now links them to the Meridian Star.

Jack waits for Celesti to give her orders to the crew. It feels odd after being in charge of Torchwood for so long to be standing back and letting somebody else be in charge. Odd, but not bad, as it's something of a relief to not to be the one having to make the hard decisions all the time.

Celesti adjust the gun belt that she's now wearing over her boiler suit, and says, "Me and Jack are going over, I want a couple more volunteers."

Pol steps forward straight away.

Celesti shakes her head. "No, I want you to stay here. If things go arse up over there I want to know you here get us out. I wouldn't trust just anyone with that."

Pol doesn't look happy, but nods, saying, "Alright, but don't go looking for trouble."

"Do I ever?" Celesti laughs.

"I'll go," Owen says, stepping forward. "There could be people hurt over there."

"And if it's mechanical failure I might be able to do something." Kelda steps forward.

Tosh looks at Owen and Kelda for a moment then says, "I'll come too. If it's a software malfunction I may be able to help."

"Alright, that's enough, I need some of you to stay here," Celesti says, looking at the small group now stood closer to the airlock. "No sense leaving our own ship deserted."

There's a slightly disappointed look on Ianto's face at the realisation that he's going to be left behind, but he doesn't say anything.

"What's the readings like in there?" Celesti radios through to Vran.

" _Seems fine."_ Vran's voice comes over the comm. _"The oxygen mix is good. It's a bit warm and damp though, looks like the enviro controls might be shot."_

"Not much of a reason for putting out an all ships distress call, is it?" Celesti says, not really looking for answer. "Okay, lets get going."

The airlock opens with a hiss, and they walk into the small chamber between the Ariadne's airlock and the one on the Meridian Star.

After a moment the door closes behind them, and the one into the liner opens.

A bit warm and damp is an understatement, and Jack regrets wearing his greatcoat the moment he steps on board the Meridian Star, the heat and humidity making it feel like he's walking into a tropical rainforest.

"Keep your eyes and ears open," Celesti says, walking off down the corridor. "Now lets get to the bridge and find out what's going on."

Celesti's suspicions that the liner is being taken to be broken down for scrap seems to be confirmed as most of the soft furnishings, carpet and most of the decorative wall fittings and hangings have been removed. In a few places, mostly where it had been too difficult or time consuming to removed, fragments remain, giving the liner an air of faded grandeur.

"It must have been beautiful once," Tosh says looking a crate that's filled with broken up pieces of silver and gold plaster that once would have covered the ceiling in shimmering swirls.

"Yeah," Jack says, a little wistfully. It's been years, centuries really, since he was last on a liner like this.

"You've been on a ship like this before?" Tosh asks, curious.

"A few times." Jack smiles at the memories. Sure he'd been working when he'd been on the liners, once as a Time Agent and then a few times later on as a conman, but it had never felt like work. The drinking, dancing and scores of men and women looking for a little bit of holiday romance had seen to that.

Tosh smiles back at him. "It sounds like you enjoyed it."

"They were good times." It seems almost unreal now that back then his only worries had been how to leave without paying for anything, and how to avoid getting caught by somebodies jealous partner.

They pause at the door to the bridge. "Do you miss it?"

"I don't know," Jack says after a moment. It's been so long since he's lived that life, and since the Doctor set him on the course of becoming the man he is now, that he doesn't have an answer.

"I told somebody very special once that going back to that life wouldn't solve anything. That because I left it I'd seen things I'd never have dreamt of, and met and loved people I would never have known." There are unshed tears in his eyes as he adds, "And I meant it."

Tosh gives him a sad, knowing smile. "You mean Ianto, don't you?"

"That obvious, huh?"

"You don't mention the Ianto from your world, and you look at ours like he's going to suddenly disappear." Tosh "I asked Ianto, but he said it wasn't his place to say."

"He died. Nearly a year..." Jack stops, it barely seems true that that amount of time has passed since the horror of Thames House, of losing Ianto and Stephen.

"I'm sorry." Tosh puts a hand on his arm.

"So am I."

"It's not easy losing people," Tosh says quietly, her eyes haunted by what had happened to her world.

"I have to believe it'll get better, otherwise..." Tosh looks down. "Well, I think you understand."

"Best to keep busy, right?" Jack says, with a cheerfulness that he really doesn't feel, but thinks that Tosh needs right now. Because while he's lost Ianto and Stephen, Tosh, along with Owen and Ianto have lost everybody they've every known, friends, lovers, family, everything but each other.

Tosh nods. "Nothing like a mysterious ship and its missing crew to take your mind of your problems for a while."

Tosh is right about mysterious, Jack thinks, there's been no sign of any crew or any indication that there has been anybody on board recently as they've made their way to the bridge.

Looking round the deserted control room, Celesti says, "I don't like it."

Jack can't help but agree with her: there's something decidedly eerie about the crumbling and silent liner and its missing crew.

Celesti nods towards the controls. "Kelda, see if you can get anything on the logs about why the put out the distress call."

Kelda looks at the sweep of terminals under the huge curving window at the front of the ship. "Might take a while, controls could still be locked to crew."

"But if the ship is being decommissioned shouldn't most of the systems be open access?" Tosh says, walking over to one of the control panels. "After all it wouldn't be much use having them locked to a few specific crew members if what you've potentially got is dozens of different construction workers using is every day."

Kelda looks impressed. Turning to Celesti she says, "You okay with Tosh working on the systems with me?"

"Do what you need to. I want to find out what happened, and if we can call this old crate salvage. Then we get out of here." Celesti runs a hand through her hair. "And somebody go and fix the thermostats, it's hotter than a Gulbian sauna in here."

"I'll go," Jack says, wanting the opportunity to check out more of the ship. "I'm good with my hands."

"Full of yourself, aren't you?" Celesti says with some amusement, throwing a small radio mic to Jack. "Alright, any trouble and you call back."

"Yes, ma'am," Jack says with a smile, knowing it will get a reaction. Then, clipping the mic to coat he sets off.

Stripped of all their furnishings, the bare metal of the corridors echoes dully with the sound of Jack's footsteps as he makes his way through the ship. While the lighting flickers overhead, the hot and humid conditions affecting the wiring.

There's still no sign of any crew as Jack walks along corridors and down steps to reach the room containing the life support systems and environmental controls.

The control room is deserted, and as devoid of clues as to the whereabouts of the crew as the rest of the ship.

There's nothing wrong with the thermostat, Jack finds after minimal inspection of the controls. It has been deliberately set to create hot and humid conditions. Turning it down to a more comfortable level, Jack smiles; he's got an idea as to why the temperature and humidity have been set as high as they have.

"I've turned the heating down," Jack says into the comm. link. "It should start to get a bit cooler in the next hour or so. There's no sign of the crew, so I'm going to take a look down in the holds, I've got a hunch why the temperature was set so high."

The comm. crackles, and through the interference Jack can just about make out Celesti saying, _"Alright. Any trouble, you get back here."_

It's not far from the environmental control room to the first of the holds, and Jack has just reached it when the lights begin to flicker again, then go off leaving the room in complete darkness.

Jack stands still for a moment, listening. There's no sound to indicate that they might be under attack, although he knows that that might not actually be a good sign; a well planned ambush should be silent.

He knows it could just be the section of ship that he's in that has lost power, the wiring finally having shorted out from the damp.

Staying where he is isn't going to get any answers, and Jack feels his way along the wall of the hold until he reaches what seems to be bales of what must have been the liner's soft furnishings.

His sleeve snags on something as he feels his way along the wall. There's a ripping noise as he pulls it free, followed by the barely audible rasp of material slipping against each other.

A second later something bulky in size, but light in weight topples on to him, knocking him off his feet.

Lying on the deck Jack is aware that something has started falling on him. Slow at first, the fall of dry and musty material seems to increase until it's an avalanche of tiny flakes, covering him, seemingly trying to bury him alive.

Buried alive. Jack starts to cough, suddenly sure that he can feel dirt starting to clog in his throat and nose. Heart pounding he kicks out, trying to untangle his greatcoat from his legs, only to find that there's something twisting about his ankle, stopping him from getting away, keeping him down, maybe even pulling him under.

Fumbling at the catch on the gun holster on his belt, Jack is ready to risk shooting into the darkness and maybe hitting his own legs in an attempt to dislodge whatever has hold of him, when the lights flickers back on and Jack can see what has caught him.

He's lying half buried in a huge pile of dried pink and purple flowers, the twine that had been used to tie the bale tangled around his feet.

Heart pounding, Jack gives a shaky laugh as he frees his feet. Sitting amongst the tiny dried flowers, Jack crumbles a few of them between his fingers. He recognises them as asha flowers, mild alien narcotic, or at least they would be once processed. Right now they're nothing more than illegal pot-pourri.

A quick inspection of the rest of the holds, which would have once been filled with passengers luggage or supplies for the cruise, reveal that they been converted into a huge greenhouse. Banks of lights are suspended from the ceiling, while dozens of raised hydroponic beds, arranged in neat rows, fill the cavernous space.

The gel in the beds is discoloured and starting to dry out, while a few leaves are scattered across the deck, the asha flowers that had been grown there now harvested.

Jack is still wondering why the people who'd gone to so much trouble to cultivate the drugs only to disappear and leave them all behind, when he hears Ianto say, "We were being to think you'd disappeared."

Jack turns to see Ianto and Orvis standing in the doorway.

"Celesti let you on board then?" Jack asks, glad that they hadn't arrived a few minutes earlier to witness his rather ridiculous struggle with a pile of flowers.

Ianto nods. "She said she wanted the ship checked as quickly as possibly." He looks at Jack's coat, then asks, "You lost your radio, didn't you?"

Glancing down, Jack can see the radio mic that Celesti has given him is gone, lost mostly likely when the stacked asha bales had fallen on him.

"Found him. Nothing is wrong, not with him any way." Orvis radios through to Celesti. "We've found out why the ships taking the slow route to nowhere. It's a drugs farm."

"Shit,"Celesti swears sounding less than happy. " _Alright. You do a quick sweep of the next couple of decks, make sure there's nobody hanging about, then get back to the bridge. I've got the rest of the crew searching the other decks. Where you're done get back here and I'll put in a call to the ports authority, tell them we're bringing the Meridian Star in."_

"Should be a nice big reward though," Orvis says.

" _There'd better be._ "

Orvis takes the lead, his gun drawn, as they walk down the corridor, checking rooms as they go.

They walk in silence for a few minutes, until Ianto says, "I worked on a steam liner once."

"A man of many talents." Jack hopes that it doesn't sound too much like flirting, as he's pretty sure Ianto isn't going to appreciate it at all.

Ianto shakes his head. "Not really, I just was there to help move baggage about and help with the washing."

"Their loss," Jack says with a smile.

"I didn't work there long." Ianto smiles back. "It turned out there were a few stowaways which were a very, very long way from home, a couple of galaxies in fact. It's how I started working for-"

Ianto stops as they open the door to a new section of corridor lined with passengers cabins, the smell of decay hitting them as they do so.

Jack looks at Orvis and Ianto, and can tell by their expressions that they know what is likely to be causing the stench.

Moving forward cautiously, it doesn't taken them long to find the sort of it. Collapsed half in and half out of the doorway to one of the cabins is the remains of the one of the crew of the Meridian Star. Behind him in the cabin there are four more bodies, each similarly decayed and lying dead in their bunks.

Dead for a few days and in the heat and humidity that the ship has been subjected to, rapidly starting to decay.

Ianto looks at the bloated body with a mixture of horror and revolted fascination.

It's an expression that Jack suspects is mirrored on his own face. He can't see any obvious signs that the any of the dead aliens mights have been attacked.

"Don't touch anything," Orvis says, taking a few steps back. "I'm calling this in."

"Cel' you ain't going to like this, but it looks like the crews' dead." Orvis radio's through. "There doesn't look like there was any struggle, most of them are in their bunks. I can't see any laser blast marks, so it could be some sort of disease. We're heading to the airlock now, I suggest getting everybody back to the Ariadne as soon as possible."

" _Oh hell. You sure?"_

"Sure as I can be without taking a closer look." Orvis pauses. "And I'm not doing that with out a hazmat suit."

"Right, I'll pull everybody back,"/iCelesti says, sounding like she's come to a decision. _"Then I'm sealing this crate up until we get to Polpaxi and it becomes somebody else's problem."_

With one last look back at the body, Jack, Orvis and Ianto make their way back to the airlock.

Back on the Ariadne, Celesti gathers the crew in the breakroom.

"Okay, everybody listen up," Celesti says loudly. "I know you're all worried that there was something catching over there, and I'd be a piss poor captain if I wasn't too. But that doesn't mean we panic, 'cause that solves nothing, so this is what we're going to do."

She looks at her crew and then at Jack, making sure they are all paying attention.

"First off we're keeping the Meridian Star sealed until we get to the shipyard at Polpaxi, nothing goes in and nothing gets out. Second I want everybody who went aboard to get a full decontamination wash, anti-bac gel will left in the showers. Your clothes will need washing in it too. Once that's done we'll run a deep clean of the water re-cyc tanks and bio-filters."

There's a groan from a couple of her crew, and Celesti glares at them before continuing. "Better safe than sorry, we're damn long way out to go calling for help all because somebody was too lazy to have a wash. And third any of you feel off, and I don't care if you think it's a hangover or some dodgy food you report it in. I'm taking no chances. Any questions?"

"Shouldn't we check the bodies to make sure they did actually die of disease, rather than say taking too much of the drug they were growing?" Owen asks. "I could do it, take a hazmat suit over."

Celesti shakes her head. "No. If there is anything nasty over there at least our exposure was limited. I'm planning on keeping it that way. Nobody goes back onto the Meridian Star."

It's a reasonable decision, and Jack can see why she's made it, he just hopes it's the right one.


	4. Things Lost and Found Along the Way Chapter 4

**Title:** Things Lost and Found Along The Way (4/11)  
 **Rating:** pg13  
 **Characters:** Jack. AU Ianto, Owen and Tosh. Owen/Tosh, and eventually Jack/Ianto  
 **Contains:** Serious illness of an alien variety.  
 **Summary:** Travelling back to Earth with Ianto, Owen and Toshiko on board the freighter Ariadne, Jack has growing concerns that the glove he'd used to bring them into this universe has somehow affected him. He's still trying to deal with these worries on his own when they receive a distress call from another ship. A call which is about to change everything.  
 **A/N:** This is a sequel to The Spaces in Between. Which was a CoE sort of fix it, and as such won't fit with Miracle Day canon in any way. New part posted weekly, either Thursday or Friday.

Thank you to everbody who has read, commented on, watched or favourited this fic, it means a lot.

* * *

The showers on the Ariadne are basic, single cubicle affairs, designed with nothing but functionality in mind. The floors are wet and the smell of anti-bacterial soap hangs in the air, as Jack is the last to use them.

Going last make the most sense to Jack's way of thinking. If it had been a disease that had killed the people aboard the Meridian Star, he knows he's the least susceptible to infection, so volunteering to go last and giving everybody else the best chance to avoid getting sick is only fair.

Not that he's revealed that reasoning to Celesti or any of her crew; telling people about his immortality is something that's only ever reveal on a need to know basis, and right now there's no need for them to know.

Stripping off, Jack shakes his head as flower petals fall from the collar of his coat and shirt as he removes them. The blooms are mottled with spots of mould, and Jack finds that there is some sense of satisfaction in knowing that nobody is ever going to be able to make a profit off these asha flowers, and that maybe a few lives will be saved from the dependency, crime and violence that seems to follow their use.

Depositing his clothes in the pile to be laundered, Jack takes little time in washing the grime of the last couple of days off himself. Having a proper long, hot shower is something of a luxury on long distance ships, unless it's a passenger liner, as the storing and recycling enough water isn't efficient enough to allow day use; a quick was and a shower ever three days or so being the normal.

Jack frowns as he notices that there's still faint traces of bruising and swelling on his knee, although there hasn't been any pain in it for quite a while. It's a little disconcerting as he'd been sure that all traces of it should have disappeared by now.

By the time Jack has finished his shower and got dressed the evening meal is being served, and he makes his way to the breakroom.

Seeing Ianto, Owen and Tosh sitting together, Jack goes over to them and sits down.

"I asked Orvis about what the aliens who snuffed it were," Owen says, once Jack has helped himself to some food from the serving pot in centre of the table. "He reckons they were something called Chelvos, he was bit vague on details so I looked it up. Turns out they're a calcium based species with gills that are equally happy breathing air or water, provided the air isn't too dry. Which honestly is a bit freaky."

"Useful though," Jack says suggestively. "Just think of all the things you could do if you didn't need to breathe through your nose or mouth?"

"You're a sick man." Making a disgusted face, Owen gestures towards Jack with his fork. "Any way, disregarding things you could do if you breathe through your ears."

"Play the bagpipes?" Ianto suggests dryly, although it looks like he's trying hard not to laugh.

"The point is," Owen continues. "A disease that affects a species that's completely different from anybody on board is pretty unlikely to be contagious to us." Owen sounds almost disappointed at having even less of a reason to ask Celesti for permission to check over the bodies. "So it looks like we're safe."

"That's your professional opinion?"

"Based on what little information I've got, yeah. The way I see it is we've got as much chance of getting what they had a we've got of contracting Dutch Elm Disease or dry rot. Probably less chance actually."

"You still want to be able to look into it though, don't you?" Jack asks, realising that of the four of them Owen probably has the least to do on the journey back to Earth, and is probably getting bored. And if this Owen is even remotely similar to the one that he'd known, then Jack is certain him getting very bored it's not a great idea.

"I just think it's a wasted opportunity," Owen says sounding like he's ot really willing to let the subject drop. "We're letting those bodies rot, and by the time they get them to that space port they'll be too decomposed to tell anybody anything."

Ianto looks at the food and then at Owen. "Could we wait until after we've eaten to talk about decomposing bodies?"

"I agree with Ianto," Tosh says, "No more talk of decomposition or bodies or diseases. There must be something else we can talk about."

"Alright then, what about beer?" Owen looks at Jack. "It's not illegal or anything in Cardiff is it?"

"No." Jack shakes his head. He knows they must have a lot of questions about what life is like on Earth, and especially in Cardiff, in this universe; it is going to be their new home after all. "So any more questions?"

"Ianto told me that you'd said petrol and petro-chemical related techology is much more common on your Earth, so what are the main forms of transport people use?" Tosh asks eagerly.

The evening wears on and the crew slowly leave the breakroom, going back to their cabins or to run a last check on something before going to bed. Jack can feel tiredness creeping up on him, but he doesn't want the evening to end, the conversation, which has mostly stuck to the differences between their worlds, has been good. It hadn't felt like old times with his team back in the Hub, but perhaps, Jack thinks, that's for the best. They are, after all, their own people with different memories, hopes and fears, and trying to fit them exactly in the holes left in his life by the loss of Owen, Tosh and Ianto is likely to cause nothing but misunderstandings and hurt feelings all round.

Eventually the conversation dwindles, and Owen gets up, saying, "I don't know about you lot, but I'm knackered, so I'm off to bed."

Tosh shakes her head. "You have such as way with words, don't you?"

"Yeah, could have been a poet me," Owen says cheekily. "So you coming to bed then?"

"Yes," Tosh says with a laugh, as she gets up to follow Owen.

Stopping at the door, Tosh turns back to Jack and Ianto, saying, "Goodnight." Before heading back to hers and Owen's cabin.

"You haven't told them yet, have you?" Jack asks once Owen and Tosh have gone.

Ianto sighs. "No. I just can't seem to find the right moment."

"There never are any right moments," Jack says sadly. "You wait and wait thinking you've got all the time in the world to tell them, and then they're gone."

Leaning forward, Ianto reaches across the table to take Jack's hand in his. "I know what you mean."

Jack looks down at their linked hands, the warmth of Ianto's against his own more comforting that he wants to admit. Turning his hand slightly, Jack rubs his thumb along the the edge of Ianto's palm.

As Jack does Ianto quickly moves his hand away, a surprised look on his face.

An awkward silence follows, one that is only broken when, despite his best attempts not to, Jack yawns, tiredness finally catching up with him.

"Tired?" Ianto asks, looking a little relieved that he might be getting a way to avoid an awkward conversation. "Or am I getting boring?"

"Never boring." Jack smiles, before lying smoothly, "Just tired, must be time for my weekly nap." There doesn't seem to be anything to be gained by telling Ianto that he's started sleeping most nights now.

Ianto frowns slightly, but doesn't press the issue. "I'd better let you get your beauty sleep then." He gets up to leave. "I'll see you in the morning."

"You too," Jack says. He lets Ianto leave, before heading back to his own cabin.

It has been a good evening, even the slight awkwardness of the end of it not taking away from it. Happy and relaxed, it doesn't take long for Jack to fall asleep.

 _The scent of damp earth is all around him, and Jack can feel the wet, sloppy mud pouring in over the top of his boots as he sinks into the quicksand like ground at the bottom of the hole._

 _Several feet above his head shadowy figures, their voices muffled and indistinct, move in the mist about at the top of the pit, paying no attention to him._

 _His feet are stuck, and any attempt to move them pulls him deeper into the ground. Scared, Jack calls out, "Hey, give me a hand!"_

 _One of the figures approaches, his face only becoming clear when he speaks. "Why should I? You let go of mine." Gray looks down at him with nothing but contempt in his eyes._

 _"I never meant to let you go." Jack reaches out a hand to him. "Gray, please."_

" _You're dead to me, and dead things belong in the earth." Gray turns and walks away._

 _As Gray leaves his place is taken by Suzie, her neck marred by the gunshot that took her life the first time around. "You never mean for anything to happen, Jack. All those big speeches about holding on to life, it's just talk."_

 _"Suzie!" There's fear in Jack's voice now, the realisation that there's no way out unless somebody helps him. He's being sucked down, deeper and deeper. The mud is chest deep now, the cold weight of it pressing against his ribs, making breathing hard and painful._

 _Suzie steps back to be replaced by Ianto, who looks down at him with sorrowful eyes. "She's right, Jack, it's all just words. Pretty, meaningless words, spoken because it's what you think we need to hear. We're all moths to your flame, and sooner or later we all crash and burn."_

 _"Don't leave me!" Jack calls out desperately as Ianto turns to go._

 _"We all have to leave you, you know that." Ianto smiles sadly. "We all have die, while you get to live."_

 _"That's not my fault, Ianto, please, you know that's not my fault," Jack says, hurt and scared. "Why are you all doing this?"_

 _"Yes, why, granddad?"_

 _Jack tilts his head back, the mud rising up about his shoulders, to see Steven stood at the edge of the pit in front of Ianto and Suzie._

 _"Yes, why? Why do you still live?" There are more and more voices asking the same question over and over, as the figures step forward. Jack can see Owen, Tosh, Alex Hopkins, the real Captain Jack Harkness who he'd stolen the name of so very many years before, Greg who'd made the bleak post war years seen that bit brighter. Estelle young and beautiful as he'd been when he'd danced with her on the eve of the Second World War. Finally Clem joins them, accompanied by all the children he'd let go, a row of small sad faces looking out of the misty darkness._

 _"I'm sorry." Tears run down into the mud, and Jack stops fighting to escape, the weight of guilt more crushing than the earth around him. "I'm so sorry."_

 _They all fall silent, watching impassively as the mud continues to rise, covering his mouth._

 _Finally as the mud covers all the top of his face Steven steps forwards. "Bye bye, granddad."_

 _The last thing Jack sees before the watery mud closes in over his face is Steven standing on the edge of the pit, slowly waving goodbye._

Gasping for air, tears running down his cheeks, Jack wakes to find himself in his bunk, the sheets tangled about him, covering his face.

Heart pounding, Jack frees himself. Sitting on the edge of the bunk, he tries to will his breathing back under control. His chest aches, the discomfort of the dream lingering into wakefulness.

It doesn't surprise him. Dreams of suffocation had been only too common an occurrence in the weeks after the devastation that Gray had wrought. He'd never had to wake from those nightmares alone though, Ianto having been his almost constant companion in the weeks and months that had followed.

Hunching forward, Jack covers his face with his hands, tears falling unchecked. His chest hurts as sobs start to shake him, breathing harsh and painful. It doesn't surprise him though, following Ianto and Steven's deaths the grief had felt like a physical ache, and some days it had been all he could do to even get out of bed and eat. Without Gwen and Rhys support he's not entirely sure he'd have even bothered with the eating part.

Eventually the tears stop and Jack wipes his eyes. Going back to sleep doesn't seem like a viable option, and wandering the ship at night is just likely to raise questions about what he's doing awake so late, the fact that it's obvious that he has been crying isn't likely to make anyone less curious. So after a moments thought, Jack gets book out of his minimal luggage to try an distract himself, and waits for morning to come.

* * *

The morning passes slowly, the work of moving, sorting and repackaging cargo, seeming heavier, hotter and more tedious than ever, and by lunch time Jack is considering asking to be excused the afternoon shift.

Jack can feel the dull throb of a headache starting to build as he makes his way to the breakroom. Lunch, whatever it is, doesn't hold much appeal, but Jack knows he should at least get something to drink – allowing himself to get dehydrated definitely isn't going to help him feel any better.

Sitting down next to Owen and Tosh, who are already part way through their meal, Jack asks, "Where's Ianto?" It seems strange for him not to be there; Jack can't remember a break time on the Ariadne when Ianto wasn't sat with Owen and Tosh.

"Don't know," Owen replies. "He turned up for breakfast, and went off to work with Pol on some inventory thing, haven't seen him since. Probably just lost track of time."

Jack frowns. He hopes that Ianto hasn't started avoiding him again, the momentary awkwardness of the previous night hardly seem to be enough to warrant it. Frowning seems to make his headache worse, and Jack stops, pinching the bridge of his nose, trying to relieve some of the ache.

"Are you alright?" Tosh asks, looking at Jack with a concerned expression. "You're not coming down with something, are you?"

"I'm fine," Jack says a little offhandedly, the headache, tiredness and lack of appetite suddenly making a horrible kind of sense. He's sick. All of Owen's reassurances of the previous night about how cross species infection is rare enough to be negligible, especially with the very limited contact that they'd had with the Meridian Star, suddenly seems to count for nothing.

"I'm fine," Jack repeats, getting up, jarring the table as he does so. "I just need to find Ianto."

There are too many places on the ship that Ianto could be, but Jack decides to try the most obvious option, Ianto's cabin, first.

Although not far, Jack feels rather out of breath by the time he knocks on the door to Ianto's cabin. After a moment, and when there is no answer, he knocks again, louder and more insistent, deciding that if Ianto doesn't open the door soon he's just going to let himself in.

The door opens fractionally. Ianto looks through the gap at him, before asking somewhat irritably, "Is there something you want?"

"I wanted to see if you were okay." Ianto doesn't look alright. He looks pale, a pinched look around his eyes suggesting pain. Jack takes a deep breath, the ache of last night seeming to become more pronounced again. "You're not though, are you?"

"It's a headache, that's all. Now if you don't mind I like to be left alone." Ianto starts to close his door.

"This is important, so don't lie to me." Jack pushes his way into Ianto's room. "Now what's wrong?"

"Alright, fine, I get migraines, a few a year," Ianto says irritably, trying to shove Jack back out of the door. "What I need is some industrial strength painkillers, a dark room, and for you to stop bothering me."

Jack catches hold of Ianto's arm. He's sure his own headache is starting to feel worse, the dull throb which has been building all morning now punctuated by sharp stabs of pain. It only serves to intensify the fear that they've both caught something on the crumbling liner. Something which, if it's able to affect him, could potentially kill Ianto. "You need to see Owen right now. I can't lose you."

Slapping Jack's hand, Ianto pushes him against the wall. "For the last time I'm not yours to lose. You're not my partner, and the way you're behaving right now I'm not even sure I want you as a friend. Now leave me alone."

Jack takes a step back, realising that he's gone too far. He wants to tell Ianto that he didn't mean it like that, that he's just worried, but no words come out, as a cough shakes him, and then another. Struggling to get a breath in, Jack braces a hand against the wall, the other pressed against his chest trying to relieve the growing ache.

The coughing slowly subsides leaving Jack feeling weak and drained. Jack wipes a hand across his mouth. He is aware that Ianto is looking at him with a concerned expression on his face.

"Jack?" Ianto's voice seems to be coming through a fog. "...blood."

Jack looks down to see a smear of red on his hand. "Oh." His hand seems to swim in and out of focus, the rushing noise in his ears getting worse as his vision starts to grey out. He has the brief impression of Ianto stepping forward to catch him as his legs give way before everything goes dark.

* * *

Jack slowly opens his eyes, the ache in his head intensifying as he tried to look around.

"Where's Ianto?" It comes out as a hoarse croak, his throat feeling sore.

"In his room, where he's hopefully managing to get some rest," Owen says sounding somewhere between irritated and concerned. "I had to pretty much drag him back there you know, he didn't want to leave you."

"Oh."

"Yeah well, he's soft like. He told me you'd been hassling him, wouldn't believe him about migraines." Owen looks less than pleased. "Well I can tell you he's telling the truth, not that it's any of your business, so you can stop making his life harder than it already is."

Jack closes his eyes again. His head hurts, while his chest feels like something heavy is sitting on it. It's unpleasant and more than a little disconcerting, as he doesn't know what could be causing it.

"I'm grateful for you coming to get me and Tosh, I really am, but that don't mean you get to take our Jack's place."

"I don't want to." Jack tries opening his eyes again, but the light hurts, and he closes them again.

Owen makes a concerned noise, and dims the lights. "Alright, lets find out what's wrong with you, so I can tell Ianto he's worrying about nothing."

Jack nods slowly, everything aching.

"Okay, first things first, how long have you been sick?"

Thinking makes his head ache worse, and Jack says, "This morning, I think."

"You think?" Owen grumbles. "Have you eaten, drunk, or breathed in anything you think could have done this?"

"I don't know. I don't think so." Jack drags in another slow breath. He wonders if it could be poison. In a way he hopes that it is; being poisoned he understands. Only this doesn't feel like any poison he's come into contact with before, and he asks, "Do you think I've got what killed the crew of the Meridian Star?"

"Your immortal, we're not and you're the only one that's sick, so I wouldn't have thought so," Owen says. "I've had to tell Celesti about this, you being sick that is, not the you can't die part, just in case it is." Owen gets out a data slate. "She wants a full report. Apparently if it's anything contagious we'll have to put the ship into quarantine until everybody been clear for a week before we're allowed to dock or teleport anywhere."

"I don't want to feel like this any long than can be helped either, believe me." Jack shivers, feeling achy and miserable.

"You're running a bit of a temperature." Owen says putting his hand on Jack's forehead. "Can't tell you how much of one as I can't find a thermometer, but I'm going with a degree or two over."

"Feels hard to breath."

Owen frowns. "Could be a chest infection, I can't tell where the blood came from, there wasn't much of it any way. I might just have been from your throat from coughing too hard."

"I don't get sick." Jack says. The mechanics of how he's sick at all suddenly seeming much more of a problem than actually being ill. "I mean never. Either it's something minor and I never catch it, or it's something that's deadly straight away, and I die and come back healed. I _really_ don't get sick."

"Okay," Owen says placatingly. "Look, being as I don't know what you've got until I run some tests, I'll take your word for it. You'll probably have healed up what ever this is by the time I get the results back. In the meantime I'm going to give you some painkillers, and you're going to take them and make sure you drink enough so you don't get dehydrated, and get some rest."

Jack wants to argue, but there really isn't any point in doing so – it's not going make the test results appear any quicker, or make him feel any better.

The painkillers do help, the ache in his head and chest falling back to barely noticeable levels. With most of the discomfort gone the tiredness that he's been fighting all day wins out, and Jack falls into an exhausted sleep.


	5. Things Lost and Found Along the Way Chapter 5

**Title:** Things Lost and Found Along The Way (5/11)  
 **Rating:** pg13  
 **Characters/Pairings:** Jack. AU Ianto, Owen and Tosh. Owen/Tosh, and eventually Jack/Ianto

 **Contains:** Serious illness of an alien variety.  
 **Summary:** Travelling back to Earth with Ianto, Owen and Toshiko on board the freighter Ariadne, Jack has growing concerns that the glove he'd used to bring them into this universe has somehow affected him. He's still trying to deal with these worries on his own when they receive a distress call from another ship. A call which is about to change everything.  
 **A/N:** This is a sequel to 'The Spaces in Between.' which was a CoE sort of fix it. Any similarity to Miracle Day with regards to what is going on with Jack is totally accidental as this aspect of the fic had already been decided on last year. Updated weekly on Friday.

Jack wakes feeling groggy, the painkillers having worn off while he was asleep.

The dim lighting in the room helps a little, as while his headache isn't as fierce as it had been before Owen had given him the painkillers. It's still there though, as a dull background throb, and accompanied now by pain that seems to have spread through his whole body, his joints aching as he tries to find a more comfortable position to lie in.

Jack is still trying to decide whether to get up and find Owen and get some answers about what's going on, or if he should try to go back to sleep in the hope of feeling better when he next time he wakes, when the door opens and Ianto looks in at him.

Seeing that Jack is awake, Ianto says, "I thought I should come and see how you are."

Ianto looks exhausted, the tightness around his eyes and slightly stilted way in which he turns his head makes Jack wonder if his migraine is completely gone yet.

"I'll be alright, I always am." Jack tries to sit up, the tightness in his chest suddenly increasing, making it hard to breathe. "What about you."

"I'm okay."Ianto sounds shocked, as he gets a better look at Jack, his eyes adjusting to the dim light in the room, saying, "You look awful."

Jack manages a half hearted grin. "Thanks."

"I didn't mean it like that."

"I know."

"What I said earlier about not wanting you as a friend." Ianto sounds a little ashamed as he sits down on the chair next to Jack's bed. "I don't mean it."

"Should be me saying sorry. I shouldn't have..." Jack stops, the effort of sitting up having left him feeling breathless and dizzy. "I shouldn't..."

Closing his eyes, Jack tries to concentrate on getting enough air in to his aching lungs, but he can feel consciousness spiralling away from him.

Jack slowly opens his eyes, the sensation of being rolled over onto his side jarring him awake.

"Take it easy," Owen says before Jack has a chance to speak.

"What happened?" Jack asks, his voice sounding disturbingly weak to his own ears.

Standing behind Owen, worry clear on his face, Ianto says, "You passed out again."

"No more questions for a minute." Owen waves Ianto back out of his way. "Just try to breathe slow and deep."

Dragging in a lungful of air, Jack can't suppress a groan as the pain in his chest increases, his lungs feeling like they are being filled shards of broken glass.

Owen puts a hand on Jack's shoulder. "Keep going, you'll be alright."

Jack tries again. The second breath is slightly easier, and the third is better still, but the forth catches in his throat, as another bout of coughing suddenly overtakes him.

Owen swears under his breath, then with Ianto's assistance, helps Jack to sit up and lean forward.

There's little Jack can do but wait for it to pass, relying on Owen and Ianto not to let him fall of the edge of the bed. When the coughing finally abates, Jack's relived to find that there's no taste of blood in his mouth this time, although his throat feels raw and he's trembling from both exhaustion and the lingering pain in his lungs.

Slumping back against the pillows, Jack asks, "Do you know what I've got yet?"

"No," Owen says, not looking happy about admitting it. "I haven't exactly got a research lab out here with me, have I?"

It's not really the answer he wanted to hear, but Jack clings to the one consolation is that it's him who's sick, rather than Owen, Tosh or Ianto. That he's not having watch feeling helpless and inadequate while they cough and struggle to breathe. So if he has to be Owen's lab rat to figure out what this is and find the best course of treatment then so be it, because if this is contagious he wants them to have the best chance possible.

"It seems to be a bit quick for anything that was on the Meridian Star," Owen says, getting a small bottle of pills out of his pocket. "I mean it's been less than a day, and if were something really nasty and contagious I doubt you'd have been the first to show symptoms. My best guess is that it's something from our world. Me, Tosh and Ianto probably didn't get it because we grew up there, some kind of natural immunity. Could be that while you were using the glove your immune system took a bit of a hit."

Owen's theory does seem to fit with the tiredness that he's been feeling since travelling to the parallel Earth. It still doesn't explain the slower rate of healing though.

"Honestly I'd expected your freaky healing thing to have kicked in by now, being as it's been a few hours," Owen says, shaking a couple of the pills out of the bottle. "Since it hasn't I suppose I'd better give you something to help it along."

Jack gives Owen a questioning look. He knows that in the past he's used his ability to revive to avoid a lingering and painful death, and for a moment he wonders if that is what Owen is about to suggest.

"I've been informed that these are what passes for antibiotics out here, so I'm going to get you started on these right away." Owen hands Jack two tablets and a glass of water. "With any luck you should start having some improvement in the next twenty four hours or so."

"I shouldn't need them." Jack looks dubiously at the two small tablets. "I've told you, I don't get sick."

"Well you're sick now, so get them down your neck."

"Great bedside manner you've got there." Jack grimaces as he swallows the pills, his throat sore from coughing.

"Most of my patients don't mind."

"Let me guess, most of your patients are dead."

Owen shrugs. "That's Torchwood for you. All the dead weevils and slimy, smelly, corrosive or hallucinogenic things you could ever want."

"You're going to feel right at home in Cardiff then."

"Oh lucky me. And before you ask why antibiotics," Owen says, sounding like he's trying to head off any more arguments. "It's because chest infections frequently are bacterial. People get sick with a virus, like a cold, fluid can build and get infected with bacteria. So in the current absence of any better course of treatment we're going with antibiotics, before you get full blown pneumonia or something equally unpleasant."

"You put it like that, how's a guy to refuse?"

"You're not supposed to," Owen says, leaving the bottle of pills on the table with a hastily scrawled note reading two times six hours.

Jack doesn't answer, content for now that Owen knows what he's doing.

* * *

A day and a half after passing out in Ianto's cabin, Jack is seriously starting to reconsider just letting whatever he's caught runs its course. Aching, miserable and exhausted from another night where he's spent more time coughing than asleep, a quick death followed by a speedy revival back to a healthy body is beginning to look appealing.

Nobody has broached the subject of using his immortality as a way to cure his illness, but killing himself because of what is in all probability a just some very unpleasant but non lethal bug, seems excessive. Apart from that if whatever he's caught does turn out to be contagious at least Owen will have a head start on planning an effective course of treatment the longer he has him to study.

Then there's the question of how long it will take to revive. It's not something Jack really wants to think about, but he knows he can't avoid doing so forever, especially if his slow healing is connected to his new found ability to get sick.

Poison and the very few diseases and viruses that have actually managed to kill him have always taken him hours to revive from. Scaling this up from the amount of time it has taken his knee to heal would mean that it would probably take him weeks to come back to life.

It's too long for anyone to hold out hope that he's going to come back, and it serves to reinforce the fear that they will have burnt, buried, frozen or jettisoned his body before he's able to revive.

What if I never revive? The thought seem to come out of nowhere, and while it's one he's had a great deal in the past, it really hasn't figured in his thoughts since the Doctor had told him he's a fixed point, that nothing can ever cause him to die permanently.

The Doctor had been so sure about it that he'd not questioned it. Jack also knows that the Doctor isn't totally infallible. He was wrong about being the last Timelord, and wrong about being able to travel to parallel worlds. Sure it's not often he makes a mistake like that, but when he does the consequences for everybody involved seem to be dire.

The idea that his immortality has some how just switched itself off is ridiculous, impossible, yet now he's thought it there seems to be no way to remove it from his mind.

Jack shivers, and he knows it's nothing to do with illness.

He's still shivering, trying to get the thought out of his head, when Ianto arrives with his breakfast.

Ianto gives him a sympathetic smile as he puts the tray down on the table by Jack's bed. "You might feel better if you eat something."

"Maybe," Jack says, not sounding too certain about it. He's not hungry and there seems to be rather a lot on the tray.

"I wasn't sure what you'd want," Ianto says, seeming to guess Jack's unspoken. He sits down on the chair next to Jack's bed. "I hope you don't mind, I brought mine too. I just thought you might like some company."

It surprises Jack a little that Ianto is volunteering to spend so much time with him, given that before he fallen ill Ianto had He just hopes Ianto is doing this because he wants to, rather than out of some misguided notion that he should do because he hadn't been able to be there for his Jack at the end. While he doesn't know the exact details of the death of the Jack from the parallel Earth, he knows that it had been slow, Ianto watching him fade over days or maybe even weeks as he'd used his own life energy to power a shield over the Hub, keeping them safe. He really doesn't want to think about what must be going through Ianto's mind right now.

"I can go if you'd rather be alone," Ianto says when Jack hasn't answered him.

"No, stay," Jack replies quickly, wanting a distraction from his thoughts, He just hopes that if the situation is making Ianto uncomfortable that he'll actually tell him, rather that suffer in silence.

Ianto smiles. There's a slightly shy nervousness about it that Jack thinks if he weren't feeling so rough he'd find really rather attractive.

"You're still the only one that's sick," Ianto reassures him, seemingly taking Jack's hesitation to answer as worry that he might infect him. "And it's looking less and less like that whatever it is you've caught is contagious. I don't think Owen is any nearer to working out what it is though, not if the way he's swearing at the lab he's trying to set up is anything to go by."

The food isn't particularly appealing, an alien analogue for porridge and toast, but Jack knows that he should at least make an effort.

Eating slowly, Jack listens to Ianto talk about what is going on aboard the Ariadne. It's not actually particularly interesting, but it's been lonely spending most of the time alone in his room, and Jack is willing to take whatever he can get right now.

The toast isn't too bad, rather dry and bland, but otherwise inoffensive. The glutinous texture of the porridge make Jack gag as he eats the first spoonful. Pushing the bowl away, Jack can feel cold beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

Seeing that Jack has stopped eating, Ianto asks, "Are you alright?"

Jack shakes his head, then wishes he hadn't, the movement making the nausea worse.

Covering his mouth with his hand, Jack realises there isn't going to be enough time to do anything more than lean forward as the food comes back up. Retching and coughing, until tears are running down his face, Jack continues to dry heave long past the point of there being anything left to bring up.

Ianto looks slightly ill at the sight of the vomit covered bed covers. He runs a finger around the the collar of his shirt, loosening it slightly as he swallows hard. "Do you want to go and get cleaned up?"

Jack nods very slowly, still uncertain whether he's going to be sick again.

Ianto looks at Jack and then at the bed and then at Jack again. "Do you need any help?"

"I can manage," Jack says, getting out of bed.

Ianto looks soiled sheets, and says, "I'll clean this up then, you take as long as you need."

Legs feeling like rubber, Jack leans against the walls for support as he walks the short distance to the bathroom.

Bracing his hands against the edge of the sink, Jack looks at his reflection in the mirror. Skin looks pale, making the dark smudges beneath his bloodshot eyes look all the more pronounced.

Everything seems to take much longer than it should, but eventually, with his face and hands washed, and his teeth brushed, Jack feels marginally better. He's trying to decide if he should attempt to have a shave, as after a few days without there is a definite hint of stubble, when there is a knock at bathroom door.

"Jack?" Ianto asks at the door. "Are you alright in there?"

"Yeah." Deciding to forgo the shave, Jack slowly makes his way to the door.

What little energy he had left seems to fade away as he fumbles with the door catch. Eventually he manages to open it, and stumbles out to leans weakly against the door frame.

They look at each other for a moment, then Ianto steps forward,

No fuss, no questions, just a silent gesture of support. One which Jack accepts with heartfelt gratitude.

Even with his arm around Ianto's shoulders for support, Jack is shaking with exhaustion by the time he sits back down on his bed, his breathing harsh and laboured.

"Do you want me to get Owen?" Ianto asks, sounding worried that Jack might pass out again.

Jack shakes his head. There's nothing that Owen can do right now that Ianto isn't already doing.

"You should probably lie down," Ianto says, pulling back the edge of the clean covers he's put on the bed, so that Jack can get in.

There's a knock at the door, and a moment later, before either of them have a chance to answer, it opens.

"Bad time?" Celesti asks, seeing Ianto leaning over the bed, his arm around Jack. "I can come back."

"No, it's fine. I should go," Ianto says, sounding startled. Helping Jack lean back against the pillows, his hand lingers on Jack's shoulder, as he says, "I'll see you later."

He doesn't give Jack time to reply though, as he quickly leaves the room.

"He's sweet on you," Celesti says, after Ianto has left. "I reckon you'd be in with a chance with him once you're back on your feet."

It would be so easy, Jack thinks, so very easy to fall in love with him. To have all that quite intensity focused on him again, to hear that soft voice whisper things in his ear, to feel his arms holding him tight in the still of the night when they are alone. It feels like a second chance, although considering it as such would probably be massively unfair on the both of them.

Jack closes his eyes. Sure it would be easy falling for this new Ianto, and it would keep on being so right up to the point where it would tear his heart apart all over again when he inevitably loses him.

"I take it I said the wrong thing," Celesti says when Jack doesn't answer.

"No," Jack answers wearily, opening his eyes. "It's just a really, really bad idea."

"Complicated?"

"Oh yeah." Jack smiles hoping to deflect any deeper questions. "Do you normally try to hook up your passengers with each other, or should I feel special?"

Celesti laughs briefly, then says, "I say it as I see it. But that's not why I can to see you."

"No?"

"No." Celesti looks serious now. "I came to see how you are, see if you needed anything." She sighs. "I can't help but feel this is my fault."

"It's not."

"I asked you to be in the first group over, I sent you off to deal with environmental controls on your own and without any safety gear," she says,sounding guilty. "I'd say it's more my fault than anyone else's."

"You couldn't have known."

"When you're in command you have to take responsibility for the bad along with the good, and right now I feel pretty damn responsible." Celesti sighs again, and runs her hand through her hair. "I'm not a great captain, but I try to do right by my crew. And you've worked as hard as any of them, so whatever you need to get well, as long as I can do it, you've got it."

There really isn't anything that Jack can think of that Celesti could do for him. The fear of a slow revival if he were to die still haunts him, and Jack says, "If anything happens to me, make sure Owen, Toshiko and Ianto get to Earth."

"I hope it won't come to that." Celesti takes Jack's hand in hers and gives it a squeeze. "But if it does you've got my word on it, one old soldier to another, your people will get home safe."

Jack squeezes her hand back. "Thank you."

Letting go of Jack's hand, Celesti says, "I'd better be going, this old crate doesn't run itself. "

Celesti has been gone only a few minutes when Owen arrives, carrying a mug and a data pad.

"Need to know what's normal for you, not just using guess work from my worlds Jack's records" Owen says, without preamble, sitting down on the chair next to Jack's bed. "If I've got that as a baseline I can start to work out what's off."

Jack doesn't try to sit up, "There should still be a copy on the Hub's mainframe. I started monitoring it years ago, before I knew it was never going away."

Owen looks at him with something close to sympathy, knowing that Jack is talking about about his immortality. "Can you get to it?"

Jack takes a moment to answer. "I don't know, Gwen will have changed the codes after I left. I need to speak to her. Tosh can use this to get a connection." He looks at his vortex manipulator, then tries to unbuckle it. Even this small action seem to make the exhaustion worse, his fingers shaking too much remove it.

"Let me do it," Owen says, not unkindly as he pushes Jack's hand aside. Once it's removed Owen puts it in his jacket pocket.

Picking up the cup on the tray, Owen hands it to Jack. "Drink this."

Jack takes a small sip, and then nearly spits it out. "Oh, that is awful."

"It's good for you, it's not supposed to taste nice." The look on Owen's face suggests that he's going to stay there until Jack drinks it. "It's a nutrient mix. You're not keeping food down, and fighting off whatever the hell this is really taking it out of you, so you need something to keep you going."

Jack nods. He knows that Owen is right, and drinks the rest as quickly as he can, trying not to register the taste.

"I'd better get going," Owen says once Jack has finished. He pats his pocket containing the vortex manipulator. "I'll make sure Tosh gets it. Shouldn't take her long to rig something up, then we'll get this all sorted out. You'll be back to making dodgy comments about alien meat and tentacles over dinner in no time."

Still feeling queasy, Jack manages a wan smile. He just hopes Owen is right.


	6. Things Lost and Found Along the Way Chapter 6

**Title:** Things Lost and Found Along The Way (6/11)

 **Rating:** pg13

 **Characters/Pairings:** Jack. AU Ianto, Owen and Tosh. Owen/Tosh, eventual Jack/Ianto.

 **Word Count:** 2.5k (of 19k/28k posted)

 **Contains:** Serious illness of an alien variety. Talk of using Jack's ability to come back form the dead to cure him.

 **Summary:** Travelling back to Earth with Ianto, Owen and Toshiko on board the freighter Ariadne, Jack has growing concerns that the glove he'd used to bring them into this universe has somehow affected him. He's still trying to deal with these worries on his own when they receive a distress call from another ship. A call which is about to change everything.

 **A/N:** This is a sequel to The Spaces in Between. This is a sequel to 'The Spaces in Between.' which was a CoE sort of fix it. Any similarity to Miracle Day with regards to what is going on with Jack is totally accidental as this aspect of the fic had already been decided on last year. Updated weekly on Friday.

"Celesti has got Vran to drop our speed for a while so we can get more stable connection," Tosh says, as she sets up the viewing screen and comms link that she's attached the vortex manipulator on a table next to Jack's bed. "I've routed it so that it will either go the computer we spoke to Gwen on at the spaceport or to her phone, if the computer isn't switched on."

"Thanks." Slowly, Jack sits up, hating the fact that even this small movement it's something he has to actively think about doing now, that everything he does has to be weighed against the pain and exhaustion it will cause.

The fact that neither are consistent doesn't help. The pain and weakness seems to wax and wane, and Jack suspects that it's his immortality trying to whatever damage it is that has been done. It's not working though, not properly, as the periods where he's not aching or coughing too much to be able to do anything other than lay in bed waiting for it to pass, seem to be getting fewer and fewer.

It's frustrating, miserable and, if Jack's honest about it, rather frightening; it feels like his life is ebbing away and he's powerless to stop it.

The device takes a few moments to connect. The transmission is voice only at first, Gwen sounding a little stressed, as she says, "Hang on a minute, just got to park."

"If it's a bad time I can call back."

"No. Well yes, it is bad, but not Torchwood level of bad, if you know what I mean," Gwen admits. "But I've always got time for you Jack."

The visual feed kicks in a minute later, showing Gwen sat in the driver's seat of an SUV. She stares at Jack for a moment, wide eyed and worried, before asking, "Jack, what's happened? You look dreadful."

"Seem to have picked up a bit of bug." Jack manages a half hearted smile, knowing that he looks far from well. "I need you to you to send Owen-" He stops to take a breath, feeling a little dizzy. "A file. It's on the mainframe, in the secure area."

"What's it called?" Gwen asks, grabbing a pen and paper from the glove box.

"CJH datafile eighteen dash four dash ninety three. It's encrypted, just send it, I'll give Owen the codes when it gets here."

"I'll send the file as soon as I get back to base," Gwen says, watching him, worry clear in her eyes. "You're going to be alright, aren't you?"

"You know me."

"Yes I do, so don't you dare lie to me, Jack." Gwen sounds upset, and angry. "Not about this, not...I can't lose anybody else, Jack. I can't lose you."

Jack doesn't answer. Instead he closes his eyes, not able to bear to see Gwen's reaction, because he knows he's not going to be able to offer her any words of comfort.

"Jack?" Gwen asks, scared now rather than angry. "Jack, please you're scaring me."

Leaning round, so he can see into the monitor, Ianto answers. "He'll be alright, Gwen. We won't let anything happen to him, I promise."

"You'd better do," Gwen says protectively.

Then the connection flickers for a moment, the flickering accompanied by a series of beeps.

"I'm going to have to go, I've got another call," Gwen says, reluctantly. "It'll be Andy asking where I've got to. He's managed to get himself arrested, and I was on my way to sort it out."

"Something serious?" Jack asks, knowing that Gwen can ill afford to lose any staff right now, not when it's just her, Rhys and Andy running Torchwood.

"He ran naked through the Sennedd while the assembly government was in session."

Jack laughs, the sound rattling and wheezing in his chest. "There'd better be pictures."

"There was a live televised broadcast going on – everybody has pictures." Looking at Jack, she gives him a reassuring smile. "I'll get him to tell you all about it **when** you get here. He'll have seen the funny side of it by then."

Jack can't miss the emphasis that Gwen puts on 'when,' as if by saying it firmly enough she can assure his safe return to Earth. It's reassuring somehow, that despite everything that has happened to her and all that she has seen since joining Torchwood, there's still the same determined to see the best outcome no matter what attitude that she had when she started.

"Before you go," Tosh says, moving the monitor a little so that Gwen can see her. "When you send the file just treat it like email. Instead of an address you'll need to send it to the number you've received this call on. It should be a twenty seven digit number."

"I'll send it as soon as I can." The connection flickers again, Andy trying to phone her again, and Gwen sighs. "You call me if there's anything else you need, or if...well if anything happens."

"Of we will," Tosh reassures her.

"Get well soon, Jack." Gwen touches a hand to the screen. "It's not been the same round here without you. "

"And you keep safe," Jack tells her.

"I will, and I'll see you soon." Gwen presses a button on her phone and the transmission cuts out.

With the call ended, Ianto says, "I supposed I'd better go and ask Celesti if we can keep at this speed for a while longer, just until Gwen gets a chance to send the file."

"And I should get the comm relay back to Kelda, so we can have to hooked back up for when she does," Tosh says, starting to unplug the monitor from the comm unit. "Do you need anything before we go?"

"No," Jack says wearily, glad to be able to lay down again. "I think it's time to catch up on my beauty sleep"

* * *

Jack's not sure how long Tosh and Ianto have been gone long when he's woken up by Owen, who's carrying a small, portable monitor and what looks like a flat metal paddle about the same size and shape as cricket bat, letting himself in to his room.

Jack looks at it sceptically.

"You know what it is then," Owen says, putting the monitor down on the table, and then plugging the metal paddle into it.

"It's a hand scanner." Jack has seen enough of them over the years, at spaceports, police stations and at a few of the more interesting clubs that he used to frequent. "It's designed to check for concealed weapons and sub-dermal implants. It's not an x-ray."

"Yeah, but Tosh has been tinkering with it." Owen waves it with a flourish. "Now it does all kinds of stuff."

Jack laughs briefly, Owen's obvious enthusiasm about what Tosh can do with technology, .

Putting the scanner down for a moment to switch everything on, Owen says, "This is going to be easier if you're sat up."

Jack slowly swings his legs out of bed, so that he's sat on the edge of it facing Owen.

"Alright then, top off."

"I knew it," Jack says, wheezing as he tries to take of his t-shirt. "You just want to see me naked."

"As if," Owen snorts.

Shivering slightly, the persistent low grade fever that he's been running since falling ill making the room feel chill, Jack tries to keep still while Owen runs the scan.

Holding the scanner a couple of inches from Jack, Owen moves the scanner slowly up and down his back, and then repeats with his chest.

"Let's see what we've got," Owen says, putting the scanner down. Bringing up the scanned images on the monitor, Owen swears.

"It's bad then?" Jack asks, wondering why he's actually surprised. The way he's feeling good news would be more shocking.

"Yeah." Owen turns the screen around so that Jack can see.

The display is poor quality, the resolution of the image having been sacrificed to some extent to gain the deeper scanning capability. Jack can make out his lungs though, their surface looking like a haphazard patchwork of white and grey blotches.

"I'm not normally in favour of patients self diagnosing stuff, but you've probably seen a hell of a lot of diseases, alien or otherwise over the years," Owen says, sounding sorry that he's having to do this to Jack. "So any ideas?"

Jack shakes his head. He can think of a few things that would show up like that on x-rays of the lungs: Cancer, tuberculosis, Jindosian lung rot. But none of them fit, and certainly none of them should appear and progress so much in just a couple of days.

"Well it was worth asking anyway," Owen says, looking rather disheartened by the fact that Jack can't think of anything. "Let's get you back into bed."

"Talk me through what you've found so far, maybe I'll think of something" Jack says, once he's laying in bed again, propped up with stack of pillows piled behind him, to make breathing a little easier.

Owen doesn't look happy about explaining, although Jack suspects this is mostly because he's still not sure of what is actually going on. "Okay, far as I can tell something is affecting your lungs, but I don't have the equipment here to find out exactly what, except that it's fast and nasty."

"Whatever this is you've got you're trying to fight off, but it's pretty much a draw at the moment." Owen looks even less happy as he continues. "Your lymph nodes are swollen, and your white cell count is cycling from near overload to barely there faster than I've ever seen anyone's do or should even be possible. It's that immune response that's giving you the fever and joint pain. The cough and chest pain is because your lungs are fucked."

Jack manages a wheezing laugh. "Technical term is it?"

Owen just smiles grimly and presses on. "The antibiotic I started you on doesn't seem to be having any effect, so I'm going to stop it and start what I've been told is a broad spectrum anti-viral. I don't know how good it is though, I'm not exactly up to date on my alien drugs from another dimension."

"What if it doesn't work?"

"Then I'll think of something else, won't I?" Owen's confidence seems forced and Jack doesn't blame him.

"You could just-" Jack pauses to take a breath, the sound rattling in his chest. "-kill me. I'd come back."

"You know that for certain, do you?" Owen asks, sounding as if he's giving it serious consideration, as he puts down the notes he's been making about the scan. "You're a hundred sure?"

The worry about how he's managed to get ill in the first place, and about what it means in terms of reviving is still there, and Jack shakes slowly shakes his head feeling sick and scared at what he's finally admitting.

"Then we're not doing it," Owen says firmly, picking up the notes back up again.

"Going to die anyway," Jack rasps, feeling another bought of coughing about to start. Leaning forward, he presses a hand against his chest, hoping it'll relieve some of the pain.

Not that it really works any more, and long before the coughing spasm has finished Jack is shaking, tears running down his face. Along with the pain and the copper tang of blood there's a vile musty taste that seems to be getting stronger the longer he's been sick.

Not musty, Jack thinks a little wildly, a fresh wave of exhaustion engulfing him, but rotten. He's rotting, he's as physically dead on the inside as he sometimes feels. A half hysterical laugh escapes him, as he knows it's either that or cry.

Owen doesn't say anything, he just rubs Jack's shoulders, until it has passed.

"Your temperature feels like it gone up a bit, so make sure you keep drinking plenty of water, and try to get some sleep," Owen says, helping Jack lay back down. "I've got a few things I need to do. I come back with the new meds in a while."

Nodding, Jack slumps back against the pillows, feeling too weak and miserable to argue.

The door doesn't close properly as Owen leaves, and Jack can hear footsteps in the corridor outside.

The footsteps stop outside the room, and Jack hears Ianto ask, "How is he?"

"He asked me to kill him," Owen says quietly, sounding like he still can't quite believe it.

Stifling a groan, Jack rolls over so he can see them.

"You didn't," Ianto says, looking horrified. "Please, Owen, you didn't."

"Of course I bloody well didn't, do you think I'm a idiot?" Owen says angrily, although it's more out of frustration than actual anger. "He doesn't even know if he's immortal any more."

"Is that even possible?"

"How the hell should I know?" Owen snaps, and pushes past Ianto. "I'm going to ask Tosh, see if she can make some sense of it. You stay with him, and make sure he doesn't try anything stupid."

"Of course." Ianto sounds close to tears.

Jack rolls over, pretending he hasn't been listening to them talk, as Ianto opens the door and walks in.

"Hey," Ianto says as he sits down on the chair next to Jack's bed. "How are you feeling?"

"Been better," Jack replies breathlessly.

Ianto is quite for a moment, a sad and distant look on his face, before he says, "Owen told me what you asked him to do, and why he wouldn't do it."

Jack closes his eyes. He really hadn't expected Ianto to admit to that conversation, or want to talk about it with him.

"He's gone to talk to Tosh, to find out if it's possible," Ianto says quietly. Taking hold of Jack's hand he asks, "You think it's possible, don't you? You think that you're mortal again."

"Maybe. I don't know." It's barely above a whisper, the fear that has been plaguing Jack suddenly too much to bear now that he's admitted it. As if by speaking his fears aloud he's making them true. He's had years, centuries, to get use to the fact that he's going to live forever, but just a few short days to take in that might have all been taken away from him. The thought that his death, if Owen can't find a cure, could be days or even hours away, and that there will be no reviving this time, terrifies him more than ever thought it would.

A sob shakes him. He's not ready to go. Not now, not like this.

"Jack?" Ianto leans closer.

"I'm scared." Jack admits, starting to shake, unable to stop despite the fact that the movement is hurting him.

"I know." Ianto's voice is thick with emotion, tears barely held back as he puts an arm around Jack, trying to comfort him.

Part of Jack thinks that for everything he that he's done or has failed to do in his unnaturally long life that this is no more than he deserves, but another part has never wanted to live more than he does right now. Turning his face against Ianto's chest, Jack lets the tears fall.


	7. Things Lost and Found Along the Way Chapter 7

**Title:** Things Lost and Found Along The Way (7/11)  
 **Rating:** pg13  
 **Characters/Pairings:** Jack. AU Ianto, Owen and Tosh. Owen/Tosh, and eventually Jack/Ianto

 **Contains:** Serious illness of an alien variety.  
 **Summary:** Travelling back to Earth with Ianto, Owen and Toshiko on board the freighter Ariadne, Jack has growing concerns that the glove he'd used to bring them into this universe has somehow affected him. He's still trying to deal with these worries on his own when they receive a distress call from another ship. A call which is about to change everything.  
 **A/N:** This is a sequel to 'The Spaces in Between.' which was a CoE sort of fix it. Any similarity to Miracle Day with regards to what is going on with Jack is totally accidental as this aspect of the fic had already been decided on last year. Updated weekly on Friday.

Jack wakes, his eyes feeling gummy and sore from falling asleep with tears still in them.

He's not sure when he finally fell asleep, the last clear thing he remembers is Ianto rubbing his back, trying to ease the painful, gasping sobs that where shaking him. The realisation that Ianto must have continued to hold him until he'd cried himself to sleep touches him more than he can say.

Rolling over onto his side, Jack can see Ianto is asleep in the chair next to the bed, his head nodding forwards.

It always surprised Jack how young his Ianto had looked when he was asleep, and this Ianto is no different. The worried frown that seems to have become his permanent expression over the last few days is gone, replaced by a peaceful one. Jack just wishes he could give Ianto that carefree life, but that, like so much else at the moment, is out of his control.

Jack can feel another bout of coughing building, and he tries to muffle it, covering his mouth with his hand.

It's not altogether successful, and after about a minute or so, just as Jack finishes coughing, Ianto wakes. Looking bleary eyed and tired, he says, "Are you alright. I'm sorry, I must have dozed off."

"I'm okay, and you look like you needed it." Jack hurriedly wipes away the blood on his lips before Ianto can see. "You didn't need to stay, you know."

"I couldn't just leave you." Ianto looks surprised by the intensity in his voice, hurriedly saying, "I mean I'd have done the same for Owen or Tosh."

Jack just nods. He knows that eventually they are going to have to talk properly about the tangled mess of what they are feeling about each other, to try to work out what, if anything, there is between them.

"Tosh came by while you were asleep, she said she'd come back later. I think she wants to talk to you about how your immortality works. Owen told her about you said, the not working right part that is, I don't think he said anything else," Ianto says, changing the subject as he pours Jack a glass of water. "Owen dropped in as well, he left you one of the nutrient mixes, it just needs some water adding to it."

"Lucky me."

"I could get you some other food," Ianto offers. "You might be okay with it."

Food sounds about as unappealing as the nutrient mix, and Jack says, "I think I'll leave it for now."

"If you're sure."

A few moments later there's a knock at the door, and Ianto gets up to answer it.

"Is he still asleep?" Tosh asks quietly.

"No." Ianto turns round to look at Jack. "Are you feeling up to talking?"

Jack smiles at Tosh. "I've always got time for a beautiful lady showing up in my bedroom."

Tosh laughs. "Seems like some sleep did you good."

Amused, Ianto shakes his head, and then gestures to the chair, "You can have my seat."

"You're not going to stay?" Tosh asks, a little surprised.

"No. I've got a couple of things I need to do."

"Don't work too hard," Tosh says, sounding concerned about him. "And get something to eat, me and Owen missed you at dinner."

"Food is one of the things, so don't worry." He pauses at the door. "I'll see you both later."

"Owen tells me you think that you've somehow managed to switch your immortality off," Tosh says, once Ianto has left. She's trying to sound business like it, although it's clear she's concerned about him.

"I think it was the glove." He been over it in his mind, and he's sure that tiredness – which now, on reflection, just seems like a normal, human pattern of sleep, had only started after he'd used it.

"I see."

"It killed your Jack, maybe it's what it does. Kills." The bitterness in his own voice, surprises Jack.

"Not like this. What it did…" She trails off with a haunted look in her eyes. "Well it wasn't anything like this." Tosh sits down, then opens the data pad she's brought with her. "I want you to start by telling me how your immortality worked, and then what differences you've noticed since using the glove."

"I don't know how it works, worked. The Doctor told me I was a fixed point. That I was... " Jack pauses to take a breath. What the Doctor thought of him, and why he left him behind has, Jack decides, no bearing on the current situation. "Well he said a lot of things, main point, nothing was going to change what I'd become. I was going to live forever."

Tosh smiles sadly, a knowing look in her eyes. It makes Jack wonder what had happened between the Doctor and Jack in their world, and if their Jack had been more free with what he's been told.

"How did your immortality work when healing injuries?" Tosh asks, making a quick note on the pad."Did it repair them all straight away? Or was there usually a delay?"

"It varied." Jack wishes he had more definite answer to give to Tosh. "Some things would heal straight away, others seemed to take a few hours, nothing ever took more than a day."

"Did you every find a pattern in why it was like that?"

"No, and believe me I'm not the only one who's tried." The women in charge of Torchwood Three back in the 1890's, and again years later, the Master, had subjected him to enough death and pain that if there had been any form of pattern in it he's sure they would have found it, and most likely used it against him.

"So even though it has varied in the past it's never been like this."

Jack nods.

Tosh looks concerned, then asks, "And how did it work with illnesses?"

"I didn't get ill. Any disease either killed me pretty much straight away if it was deadly enough or I just didn't catch it at all," Jack says, hoping that Tosh doesn't ask him about the last virus that killed him – the memories of what happened in Thames House are still far too raw for him to talk about. "I've been shot, stabbed, poisoned, electrocuted, gassed, drown, buried alive, hell I've even been exploded, but I've never been ill. You'd have thought in a couple of millennia I'd have a caught a cold or something, wouldn't you?"

"All those deaths," Tosh says sadly.

"You think it's possible, don't you?" Jack asks, both needing and fearing the answer.

"Yes," Tosh looks down. "You said that you where a fixed point in time. You'd have been a fixed point in time in your dimension. My best guess is that when you crossed into our universe that you severed your connection with your own, you were cut adrift from it in both time and space."

"So it's gone?" Jack asks hollowly.

"It might not be that simple," Tosh says, putting down her data pad. "The link may have been cut, but from what Owen told me about your knee you're still healing at a faster rate than you would if you're just human. So that gives us two possibilities. One, that the healing you're still experiencing is from residual energy still stored within you from when you were a fixed point, and that it's a finite resource that's being used up and once it's gone you'll be fully mortal. Or two, that now you're back in your own dimension your position as a fixed point is re-establishing itself, and that given time you're immortality will go back to the way that it was."

"And there's no way of telling which?" Jack asks, unable for the moment to decide which is the more preferable option.

Tosh shakes her head. "Not apart from you dying or getting older, I'm sorry, Jack, I really am."

Jack nods, not able to find any words. There had been so many times over the years that he's lived as an immortal that he's wished that death could be an option for him, the guilt of living sometimes becoming too much to bear. Even the Doctor had asked him once if he wished to die, a question that he'd felt unable to answer.

"Can I get you anything?" she asks.

"No," Jack says, sounding as numb as he feels. "I just need some time to think."

"I understand." She picks up her walking stick, and smiles sadly at him. "You think you know how your life is going to be, you have it all planned out, then everything changes."

"I know you do," Jack says quietly as she leaves. It's hard to know whether Tosh means the permanent numbness in one of her legs left over from when Gray had shot her, the fate of the Earth she came from, or both.

Alone again, Jack draws his knees up to his chest, and wraps his arms about them.

He's not sure what he'd expected Tosh to tell him. He supposes what he'd wanted was a definite answer, because, if anything, not knowing is worse.

It puts him right back where he was when he found he couldn't die – scared and full of questions which in all probability only one man could answer. Not that he expects to see the Doctor any time soon. There last encounter, a silent meeting across a crowded bar, had felt like goodbye.

Not wanting to think about that either, Jack rubs a hand across his face.

His throat feels dry from talking, and he drinks what's left in the cup. still thirsty, Jack reaches for the jug, only to find that it is also empty.

Wishing that he'd thought to ask Tosh to fill it up for him, Jack slowly gets out of bed.

Picking up the jug, Jack has only covered the few steps to the door, when a wave of dizziness breaks over him.

Leaning against the wall, his head against the cool metal, Jack waits for it to pass.

It doesn't, the tight feeling in his chest starting to increase as well.

Breathless, Jack stumbles, the jug falling to the floor with a metallic clang as it hits the deck.

The room seems airless, and Jack drops to his hands and knees, head hanging down as he gasps for breath.

There's the sound of running footsteps in the corridor outside, and Jack tries to turn towards it, tries to call out. He can't and he falls forward onto the floor.

The room and everything in it is starting to grey out by the time that Jack feels himself being rolled over, his head raised up off the floor.

He struggles weakly, barely conscious of what is happening as a mask is held over his nose and mouth.

A hand shakes his shoulder, the voice urgent, familiar, but the words remain indistinct.

"Breathe," Owen orders, nearly shouting it into his ear. "You listen to me, and you bloody well breathe."

Jack drags in a shaky breath, it hurts, but there's relief too, much needed air suddenly seeming to fill his lungs.

"That's it," Owen says. "Keep going."

"What is it?"

"Oxygen, well a high oxygen mix any way." Owen puts the mask back in place. "There's probably not enough unaffected lung surface left to get sufficient oxygen in from the air. No more questions for few minutes, just breathe."

Closing his eyes again, Jack concentrates on getting enough air in. Gradually he becomes aware enough of his surroundings to realise that his head is pillowed on Ianto's lap.

"Let's get you back into bed." Owen nods to Ianto. "Right, you lift his shoulders, I'll take his feet. We'll lift on three."

"No. I can manage." Jack tries to stand, the feeling of light headedness increasing as soon as he starts to move.

"Alright, but I'm telling you right now, this is a stupid idea," Owen says.

With Ianto supporting him, and Owen holding the mask and oxygen bottle, they slowly move over to the bed.

It's only a few steps, but by the time Jack sits down on the edge of the bed, he's shivering and shaking, gasping into the oxygen mask.

"How.." Jack taps the side of the mask. "..did you know.."

"That you might need it?" Owen finishes for him."I'm treating a patient with breathing difficulties and reduced lung capacity, it would be pretty damn irresponsible of me not to have some oxygen to hand, don't you think?"

Shakily, Jack nods. He's grateful that Owen had the foresight to do it, as he really don't want to think about what might have happened if he'd been

"I know I said that I thought this was probably something that you picked up on our Earth, but given its current speed of progression, I don't think it can be," Owen says, not looking happy that he's having to admit that he might have been wrong. "So it's got to have been something on the Meridian Star, something that only you came in contact with. So we're going to go back over there."

"Celesti won't agree," Jack says weakly. He knows that if he were in her place, he probably wouldn't either.

"She already has, that's where I went earlier, to talk to her," Ianto says. "It doesn't appear to be contagious, and she knows that it'll be easier to sign over the Meridian Star when they get to port if she can tell the authorities just what happened."

Ianto smiles slightly, trying to reassure him. "So don't worry, I've sorted out hazmat suits for myself and Owen. "

"Don't...not worth it." Jack struggles to sit back up. "Not worth your life."

"If there is a chance to save you, and I didn't take it, I'd never forgive myself." Ianto says. His voice is rough, and he turns away Jack thinks he can see tears in his eyes.

Walking quickly to the door, Ianto says, "Owen, I'm going to make sure everything is set, I'll meet you at the airlock."

Giving them both a despairing look, Owen pushes Jack gently but firm back down on to the bed. "He's willing to risk going over there for you, so the least you can do is try not to make yourself worse while we're gone, okay?"

Staring after Ianto, a defeated look in his eyes, Jack says, "And why are you risking it?"

"Because I'm a stubborn bastard, and I don't like not knowing what's going on."

"Look, I get you're fining it tough, but so it is he," Owen says, adjusting the pillows behind Jack, so that he's sitting more upright. "He spent loads of time with Jack when the glove was sucking the life out of him, and it watching you like this is doing a real number on his head."

Jack closes his eyes. He feels tearful and wretched. "Just...look after him."

"Like I'd do anything else." Owen checks the level of oxygen in the bottle. "Now, I want you to try to only use the oxygen if you feel you need it, okay?"

Jack nods.

"Now, I going to have to go and see what he doing, but I'll get Tosh to come and sit with you."

* * *

"We've fixed up a camera on Ianto's hazmat suit, so you'll be able to direct them," Tosh says, angling the screen so both she and Jack can see.

"If there's anything to find, they'll find it," Tosh reassures him, as they both start to watch.

The picture quality is poor, and the image jerky from where it's mounted on the side of headpiece of Ianto's hazmat suit. The flickering picture and the constant hiss of feedback on the comm. link add to the unsettling atmosphere, the Meridian Star seeming eerier than it had before. It makes it feel like he's watching a low budget horror film.

The environmental control room, when Owen and Ianto reach it, is just as Jack remembers it – reasonably well maintained, and lacking in any kind of useful information.

"Okay, where to now?" Owen asks, once they've had a look round.

"Follow the corridors down..." Jack takes wheezing breath, and Tosh hands him the oxygen mask.

"Jack?" Ianto asks concerned when, after a moment, Jack hasn't continued with directions. "Jack, are you alright?"

"I'm okay," Jack says moving the mask just enough to talk. He's glad that the video link only works one way. "Just thinking. Take the corridor to the left, follow direct route to cargo holds."

"Dank and crumbling room one hundred and fifty three," Owen says, sounding bored and fed up as they walk through yet another section of the ship. "And this one is filled with mouldy flowers."

The camera dips as Ianto bends down to get a better look them. "It looks like one of the bales was ripped open, maybe there was some form of struggle on board after all."

"That was me," Jack admits, hoping they don't want to go into detail – it had been embarrassing enough even without an audience. "Got my coat snagged when the lights went out, knocked it over."

Owen crouches down next to Ianto, and scoops up a handful of the flowers. "Were they mouldy then?"

"Maybe,"Jack says. He'd not really taken too much notice of it at the time, as after identifying them as asha flowers, he'd pretty much ignored them, more interested in finding out the whereabouts of the people who had grown them. Jack takes another ragged breath. "Didn't seem important."

"When you first got sick I asked you if you'd been in contact with anything dodgy, and you thought that getting covered in mouldy flowers, and breathing in who knows what kind of fungus spores wasn't bloody important?" Owen says, frustrated and angry. "I could have been spent the last few days creating cultures, finding if there some kind of anti-fungal mediation on board, but no, you-"

"Owen!" Ianto drags him to his feet, shaking him as he does. "Leave him alone, it's not going to help."

"I can hear you,you know," Jack says irritably. Much of the annoyance is directed at himself though, as he realises that the concerns about whether it was contagious the could have been solved by him just thinking to mention the mould.

"Sorry," Ianto says, letting go of Owen.

"Yeah, sorry." Owen says, putting a handful of the flowers in to a container he's got with him. "We'll bring a sample back, and I'll get to work. I'm not going to let some uppity fungus get the better us."

"He means it," Tosh says, giving Jack's hand a quick, reassuring squeeze.. "If there's any way at all to cure this he'll find it."

Holding on to Tosh's hand, Jack just hopes that Owen has enough time.


	8. Things Lost and Found Along the Way Chapter 8

**Title:** Things Lost and Found Along The Way (8/11)  
 **Rating:** pg13  
 **Characters/Pairings:** Jack. AU Ianto, Owen and Tosh. Owen/Tosh, and eventually Jack/Ianto

 **Contains:** Serious illness of an alien variety.  
 **Summary:** Travelling back to Earth with Ianto, Owen and Toshiko on board the freighter Ariadne, Jack has growing concerns that the glove he'd used to bring them into this universe has somehow affected him. He's still trying to deal with these worries on his own when they receive a distress call from another ship. A call which is about to change everything.  
 **A/N:** This is a sequel to 'The Spaces in Between.' which was a CoE sort of fix it. Any similarity to Miracle Day with regards to what is going on with Jack is totally accidental as this aspect of the fic had already been decided on last year. Updated weekly on Friday.

This part beta'd by mcparrot.

"Kovarlian powder rot," Owen announces, sounding pleased with himself as he walks into Jack's room.

"Never catch on," Jack says, weakly, not bothering to try to sit up. "Hello is so much better."

"At least you've not lost your sense of humour. I meant what the flowers had, and presumably what killed the drug growers on the Meridian Star."

"And what's killing me," Jack adds, the amusement gone from his voice.

"Yeah," Owen says glumly. "Any way, I've found out how they get rid of it, on plants that is. They spray the crop with a diluted chlorine solution, leave it for a few hours and the stuff starts to shrivel up. I couldn't find anything on how to treat people, well not ones with lungs any way. Apparently Kovarlians don't have any."

"The only way I can come up with is for you to breathe it in, only...well it's chlorine gas we're talking about, it's not something you want to screw about with." Angry, frustrated and tired, Owen sits down. "I get the amount wrong and I'll kill you just as sure as that bastard fungus is."

"Kill or cure." Jack picks up the oxygen mask and puts it back on, needing to relieve the breathlessness that now accompanies any attempt at talking. "It's still better odds than doing nothing."

"I know." Owen rubs a hand across his eyes looking exhausted. "It doesn't mean I have to like it though."

Jack suspects that he has probably worked through the night to get his diagnosis and possible treatment. It wouldn't surprise him if Tosh and Ianto had done the same.

They work well together as a team, and Jack knows that the years that they've spent at Torchwood on their world will stand them in good stead once they get to Earth. Fitting in with Gwen and Andy will be harder. Perhaps not so much for Andy, as he never really knew Owen and Tosh and had only met Ianto on a few occasions, but for Gwen, he suspects, it will be as tough as it is for himself.

"Got gassed with the stuff once" Jack says, quietly when Owen hasn't said anything else for a couple of minutes. "Ypres 1915." Trench warfare had been brutal, the silent, ever present threat of gas terrifying.

"I really didn't want to know that," Owen says looking and sounding uncomfortable. "It won't be as concentrated as that. Eight hundred parts per million is the fifty percent lethal dose for animals, I'm going to be using about forty part per million." Owen looks levelly at him. "I'm not going to lie to you though, it's going to be bloody unpleasant, and it's not risk free. But I'll have oxygen on hand the second you stop breathing it in, and I'll up the dose of antibiotics for a few days, make sure you don't get any secondary infections."

"How soon can you start?"

"You don't want to know more about it?"

"I trust you." Jack gives him a grim smile. "The longer you wait, less chance I've got, especially if my immortality is wearing off rather than slowly coming back"

"Alright, I can get it set up and ready to go in an hour or so." Owen stands up. "I can hold off a bit if you want, so you can talk to Gwen. Just in case any thing happens, I mean."

Jack shakes his head. He knows what Owen means; does he want a chance to make his goodbyes now in case it all goes wrong? He can't bring himself to do it though. He can't chance her having to live with this as her last memory of him - hollow eyed, skin almost grey with exhaustion as he gasps into the oxygen mask to get enough air to talk.

"I can't." He shakes his head again. "Could you get me some paper and a pen?" He knows he could just make a voice recording or type it out, but somehow there's an intimacy in sending a hand written letter that the others just don't have.

Owen looks thoughtful for a moment, then says, "Ianto will have some proper writing paper. I'll get him to bring you some."

oxoxoxo

Ianto arrives only a few minutes after Owen has left.

"Owen said you needed these." Ianto hands him a pad of writing paper and a pen. "I thought you might want some envelopes too, so I've left a few in the back of the pad."

"You think of everything, don't you?"

"I try," Ianto says with a small smile.

Although propped up a bit to make breathing easier, Jack knows it's still not enough to be able to write with any degree of ease. Placing his hands flat on the bed he tries to push himself up. It doesn't work and he falls back. "I don't suppose you could give me a hand?"

"Of course." Putting an arm around Jack, Ianto helps him lean forward. Then, after moving the pillows behind him so they'll support him in a more upright position, helps Jack lean back.

"You're good at that," Jack says, missing the comforting presence of Ianto's arm around him.

"I've had a lot of practice."

The sorrow in Ianto's eyes is unmistakable and Jack asks, "Jack?"

"No." Ianto looks away. "It was my Mam, she was ill for a long time. Me and Tad did what we could."

"I'm sorry."

"It was a long time ago," Ianto says sadly. "Now isn't really the time to talk about it any way."

"I know," Jack says, wondering if there will ever be any more time to talk about anything after Owen goes ahead with the treatment.

Handing Jack a tray so he can rest the paper on it while he writes, Ianto says, "Do you want to be alone for a while?"

Jack nods. These are going to be amongst the hardest letters he's ever had to write, and trying to keep his composure because Ianto is in the room will only make it harder.

Ianto puts his hand on Jack's shoulder, a gesture of support. "I'll come back later, when Owen is ready."

Once Ianto is gone Jack starts to write.

 _Gwen,_

 _If you're reading this then I'm dead, actually properly dead. A bit melodramatic I know, but you know me, I've never been accused of subtlety._

 _I'm sorry though. I don't know what else I can say._

 _I thought I'd always be here, that nothing could ever change that._

 _Please don't blame Owen, Ianto or Toshiko for any of this, they have tried their best to save me, they truly have. They're going to need you, I know it's going to be hard, believe me I know._

 _So don't let it drift Gwen Cooper, you keep loving and fighting the way you always have_   
_._

 _I couldn't leave Torchwood in better hands than yours._

 _Jack._

Folding the paper, Jack slips it into an envelope, tears in his eyes. The writing isn't as neat as he'd like, the combination of illness, exhaustion and his own emotional state making his hands shaky.

Clenching his hands into fists, Jack wills the trembling to stop. It's not completely successful, but after a few minutes he feels able to continue writing.

 _Martha,_

 _There's no easy way to say this, I'm dying. Dead actually, as I wouldn't have anybody give you this letter otherwise._

 _You were there when the Doctor told me I'd be here forever. I guess he got it wrong._

 _If you ever see him again let him know. He should know._

 _He's going to have to keep a closer eye on Earth again, as I'm not there to pick up the slack. My team will carry on doing the best it can, but they are only human._

 _I don't think I ever told you how much you making sure I wasn't left behind on the Valiant meant to me. It did, it meant more than I can ever put into words._

 _I'm sorry I'm not going to be there for you, I know I said if you ever needed help I'd come._

 _Hope things are going well with Tom, and that you're keeping the brass at UNIT in line._

 _You were amazing Martha Jones, don't you ever forget that._

 _Jack_

 _(PS you're a great kisser too.)_

There are so many people to whom he feels he owes a letter, but there's no time to write to them all. There's one last letter though that he knows that he should at least try to write, one person he owes more than any other.

 _Dear Alice._

 _I know you don't want to hear from me, and I know what I did was unforgivable, but I_   
_thought you should know, I'm dying. By the time you get this letter I'll be gone._

 _This isn't an attempt to gain your sympathy or pity, I know I don't deserve it._

 _I just want you to know that if I had been able to swap places with him, if I could have died in his place that day, I would have._

Jack looks at the half finished letter, the tears that have been in his eyes throughout writing Gwen and Martha's letters now falling. It seems so inadequate, a barely disguised attempt at trying to clear his own conscience. Angry at himself, Jack crumples it into a ball and throws it at the wall with as much force as he can muster.

There's nothing that he can say to her, nothing that he can do to ever make things better.

Hunching forwards, he covers his face with his hands, or as much of it as the oxygen mask will allow, and weeps.

The tears are only just starting to subside when Ianto comes back. He walks quickly across the room and sits down on the edge of the bed next to Jack.

"It's going to be alright," Ianto says, putting an arm around Jack. "I can tell Owen you need a bit longer."

"No." Jack shakes his head, feeling unbearably weary. "I want it to be over,"

Ianto tenses. His voice rough as he says, "Don't talk like that. Owen knows what he's doing. You'll be alright."

"I didn't mean it like that," Jack says, although if he's honest he's not sure what he meant. "Just impatient, you know me."

"I'm beginning to." Taking a handkerchief from his pocket, Ianto hands it to Jack. "Are you finished with the letters?"

Jack nods as he wipes his eyes. "I hope nobody ever has to read them."

"So do I," Ianto says, picking up the two finished letters.

Then, after putting the letters away safely in a drawer, Ianto goes to get Owen.

oxoxoxo

It doesn't take long for Ianto to arrive back with Owen and Tosh.

Jack looks apprehensively at the two gas cylinders that they have brought with them. "How much are you planning on giving me?"

"Only the little one is the chlorine mix," Owen says, lifting the larger of the two cylinders off the anti-grav trolley. "This one's oxygen."

Jack taps his mask. "Already got some."

"That's only the forty percent mix they already had in the spacesuit air tanks. This one's a custom job, got Kelda to help me boost it up to eighty five percent. I know it's not ideal, but it's the best I put together from what's on board." He checks the pressure gauge on it. "I'm going to give you ten minutes of this before I do anything else."

"Why?"

"I want your blood oxygen level up before I give you the chlorine, it'll help a bit with some of the oxygen deprivation that you're going to feel."

Taking Jack's old mask off, Owen puts the new one in place. "Now I want you to breathe as normally as you can. If it starts to make you feel dizzy or weird let me know."

Jack nods, trying to relax.

Lying in bed there is nothing to do apart from watch as Owen, Tosh and Ianto make sure everything is set up correctly.

Staying mostly in the background, Ianto is quiet and tense. It's something that Jack has come to recognise as meaning he's having a hard time dealing with what is going on but doesn't want anybody to know it. Jack considers asking him to leave while Owen and Tosh do what needs to be done. He doesn't though, knowing that Ianto would never agree to it, and arguing about it isn't going to help any of them.

He worries about Owen and Tosh as well, but knows that they need to be here for this to stand a chance of working, and even if they didn't, he's sure that any request for them to go would be met with the same refusal.

Part way through the ten minutes, Tosh clips a small monitoring device around his wrist.

Jack gives her a questioning look.

"It's to measure your pulse," Tosh explains. She presses a button on it, and a small, flashing light appears on it. On the trolley another small device begins to flash with the same rhythmic pulse.

As Tosh moves away to check that the device on the trolley is reading correctly, Owen takes her place.

"Better get this done now," he says, opening a foil packet containing a sterile wipe. Taking the wipe out, he cleans the back of Jack's hand.

Moving the mask aside so he can talk, Jack starts to ask, "What are-"

"Don't take it off yet," Owen says irritably as he interrupts him. Leaning over he puts the mask back into place. "I'm putting a cannula in, it'll make things a bit simpler later on."

Jack flinches as Owen inserts it into a vein in the back of his hand.

Owen snorts, and starts to secure the cannula in place. "It wasn't that bad, and you'll be glad I'm not rooting round for a vein later."

Once the ten minutes are up, Owen asks, "How are you feeling?"

Like something large, heavy and very annoyed has trampled all over me and then sat down on my chest for a rest, Jack thinks would be the best description. The increased oxygen has helped a little though, and he says, "Ready for anything."

"In that case I 'spose we'd better get started," Owen says, double checking the pressure and connections on the chlorine canister.

"You'll need to breathe the first breath of it in as quickly and as deeply as you can. You might get a second one in before you start coughing, if you do try to make it deep as well."

"Then what?" Jack asks, knowing that once they start he won't be in a position to ask anything.

"Depending on how much you've managed to take in I'll either take the mask off and put you straight onto the oxygen, or I'll keep the chlorine on for another few seconds just to make sure you've got a big enough dose."

"Better get it right then," Jack says, not wanting to have to breathe it in for a second longer than absolutely necessary.

"You ready then?"

"Yeah." It's a lie, and Jack suspects that they all know it. There's no way anybody could ever be truly ready for this.

Behind Owen, Ianto watches with a worried frown on his face, and Tosh waits ready to start monitoring his pulse rate and the amount of gas still in the canisters.

Owen removes the oxygen mask. "Okay, I want you to breathe out as much as you can, you'll take more in this way."

Jack can feel his heart rate start to speed up, nerves getting the better of him. The pain in his lungs starts to increase again as he breathes out, but he keeps going until he's trembling with the effort.

"Here we go then," Owen says, putting the chlorine mask in place. He takes hold of Jack's hand. "On three take a deep breath. One, two, three."

For a moment Jack isn't sure he's going to be able to, the fear of what is about to happen overriding everything else, then the need to breathe kicks in, his empty lungs demanding air, and he inhales as deeply as he can.

The pain is immediate, the heavy acrid gas, bitter on his tongue, as it floods like hot smoke into nose, throat and lungs. His eyes are watering, and he wants to be sick, as the terrible memories of watching the men in his unit die, eyes staring and their lips turning blue as they slowly suffocated lying in the cold Belgium mud many years ago, play out in his head.

"Keep going." Owen gives his hand an encouraging squeeze. "That's it, just a bit more."

"Can't," Jack croaks, his hand reaching up to claw weakly as the mask. "Hurts."

"I know it does, but you've got to keep going," Owen says urgently. "Now come on."

Crying, coughing, his throat feeling raw, Jack shudders through each ragged, excruciating breath, unsure of how he's going to force himself to take another.

Around him, Jack is dimly aware the haze of pain that Owen has started talking to Tosh, and then to Ianto.

A moment later Owen removes the mask. It does nothing to relieve the effects of chlorine, the feeling of burning in Jack's lungs getting worse as he drags in a wheezing breath between coughs.

Another mask is pushed other his face, and Jack looks wild eyed at Owen, silent plea not to make him breathe any more of the gas.

Pushing aside Jack's uncoordinated attempts to remove the mask, Owen says, "It's oxygen, don't try and fight it."

It takes a few minutes, but slowly the overwhelming feeling of suffocation recedes just enough that the pain now takes precedence. The coughing gradually worsens too, each cough ending in a pained sob for breath.

Letting go of Jack's hand, Owen moves over to the trolley. Picking up a bottle and a syringe, Owen quickly and carefully draws up a dose.

"This'll help," Owen says, injecting it through the cannula.

The mix of painkiller and mild sedative start to work quickly, and Jack can feel the pain recede back to merely unpleasant levels, the feeling of dizziness and being disconnected from everything around him increasing.

"I'd put you under if I could, let you sleep right though it," Owen says, sorrow in his eyes that he can't do more for Jack. "But you're going to be coughing a hell of a lot to get the crud out of your lungs, and if you're out of it there's a good chance you'd choke."

He takes hold of Jack's hand again. "If you really can't take it, I'll do it, and we'll just have to play it by ear. But if you can you just hang in there, okay?"

Talking isn't an option, not yet, and Jack weakly squeezes Owen hand, knowing there is nothing any of them can do now other than wait.


	9. Things Lost and Found Along the Way Chapter 9

**Title:** Things Lost and Found Along The Way (9/11)  
 **Rating:** pg13  
 **Characters/Pairings:** Jack. AU Ianto, Owen and Tosh. Owen/Tosh, and eventually Jack/Ianto

 **Contains:** Serious illness of an alien variety. Death of original alien character.  
 **Summary:** Travelling back to Earth with Ianto, Owen and Toshiko on board the freighter Ariadne, Jack has growing concerns that the glove he'd used to bring them into this universe has somehow affected him. He's still trying to deal with these worries on his own when they receive a distress call from another ship. A call which is about to change everything.  
 **A/N:** This is a sequel to 'The Spaces in Between.' which was a CoE sort of fix it. Any similarity to Miracle Day with regards to what is going on with Jack is totally accidental as this aspect of the fic had already been decided on last year. Updated weekly on Friday.

This part beta'd by mcparrot.

The twenty four hours that follow the administration of the chlorine gas are some of the worse of Jack's life.

The pain, the feeling of being on the edge of suffocation, and coughing are almost continuous, while the low grade fever that he's been running since falling ill gradually rises higher and higher until he's soaked in sweat, the thin sheet on the bed sticking to damply to him.

Everything going on around him seems to be happening through a fog, with little more than jumbled actions and fragments of conversations filtering through the haze.

Owen fixing an IV line into the cannula in his hand, his voice urgent and insistent.

Ianto moving the oxygen mask aside for a moment to feed him some ice chips. The coldness soothing against his dry lips and tongue.

Owen snapping at Ianto to get out. "You've been here for nearly twenty hours straight, and if you don't go and get some rest I'll sedate you too."

Tosh laying a damp cloth on his forehead, fingers brushing back sweat soaked hair.

And Ianto again, talking to him, the words blurring into nothingness, but the soft accent, which evokes better times, is comforting all the same.

Gradually though things start to improve, the fever dropping and the pain and breathlessness starting to decrease.

Three days after breathing the chlorine Jack is starting to feel better, although it's certainly nothing that could be considered anything like well. He still feels weak, and the hacking cough continues to bring up more phlegm and dead fungus than he thinks he's lungs should by any right be able to contain. There's no more blood in what he's coughing up though, his temperature has dropped to near normal levels, and Owen has removed the IV from his hand, content that Jack can manage to drink enough to keep himself hydrated. He's only used the oxygen once in the last twelve hours, needing it for a few minutes after a particularly heavy bout of coughing that had made him feel like he was going pass out.

Lying in bed, Jack watches as Owen fixes up the scanner that he'd used a few days previously to check the state of his lungs.

"Time to see how you're doing," Owen says, switching the scanner on. Looking at Jack he asks, "Do you want some help to sit up?"

"No." Sitting up slowly, Jack is relieved to find that apart from slight stiffness from having been lying down for most of the time there's no flare of pain or additional breathlessness.

It doesn't take Owen long to complete the scan, humming and nodding to himself as he does. Putting down the scanner once he's finished, Owen asks, "So do you want the good news or the bad news first?"

"The bad," Jack says, not seeing any point in prolonging not knowing.

"You're going to be feeling like crap for a few more days."

"That's not bad." Jack manages a slightly wheezy laugh, relieved that an end of his illness is in sight. "That's obvious."

"It's bad enough. It means I've got a few more days of reminding Ianto to get some sleep," says Owen. "Now for the good news. It looks like the fungus has bought it, and your healing thing is sort of working."

"Sort of?" Jack asks, torn between relief that he's healing and the fear that this could be last of the energy that has keep him immortal all these years finally draining away.

"Well you're healing faster than a normal human should, probably about three to four times as fast. But having gone through that file you got Gwen to send me I know that nothing like what's normal for you."

It's an understatement if Jack's ever heard one. Breathing in chlorine gas at the concentration that he's done should have healed within minutes or a couple of hours at the outside if it had been working how it used to do. There's still one question though. "Is it getting faster?"

"Faster than what?" Owen asks with a confused frown.

"Than it was." The hope that this might be the thing that proves Tosh's theory as to whether his immortality is fading away or slowly coming back, feeling like the only piece of good news that will come out of this.

"How should I know? This is only the second scan I've done," Owen says looking at the readings again. "I can run the scan every six hours or so if you want, to try and test it out?"

"Do it," Jack says wearily, the relief fading away. "I need to know."

"I know you do." Owen sighed, slightly exasperated. "You've been used to running round being Captain Invincible for a long time, but until we know what's going on with it you're going to have to start living like us normal people, just in case."

Owen's blunt honesty hurts, and Jack closes his eyes. He doesn't want to have to deal with it. Not the fact that even though he is getting better, that his life might never go back to how it was, and certainly not the thoughts that are now crowding in about how, even when he was immortal and throwing himself into danger in their place, he'd still lost everybody, and that how it will now surely be even worse. Feeling his lip start to shake, he bites it, trying to get his emotions back under control.

"Hey, are you going to be sick?" Owen interrupts his thoughts, placing a bowl on the bed in front of him.

"No." Jack opens his eyes. "It's just…" he sighs and shakes his head. It's too many things. "I'm just tired."

"Yeah, and I'm the king of China," Owen says annoyed. "If you're feeling sick, or worse, or anything, tell me. I'm supposed to be taking care of you, and I can't do that if you're going to start lying to me. So you want to try that again?"

Jack sighs. He knows that Owen won't be easily fooled, but he doesn't want to go into detail. As a compromise he says, "It's just getting to me more than it should. I'll be alright in a minute."

"More than it should," Owen repeats leaning back against the wall next to Jack's bed. "In the last year or so you've been killed repeatedly including being buried alive by your own brother. You lost your friends, some of your family, your boyfriend, your home, and your job. You're getting over an infection that nearly killed you, and trying to deal with the fact you might be mortal again, and you're wondering why it's getting to you?"

Jack nods. He wonders whether he should tell Owen that, when it's put like that, with the exception of questionable state of his immortality, it's actually only worse than the The Year That Never Was because everyone's deaths had stuck. The things that the Master had made him witness, the choices he'd been forced to make as one by one his team, and any family living on Earth, had been caught and dragged in front of him, will, he's sure, be burnt into his memory for as long as he lives.

Owen gives him an incredulous look. "You really think you should just be able to carry on like nothings happened, don't you?"

Jack nods again. It's what he has always done, what has always been expected of him. Although perhaps expected is the wrong word, needed would be more accurate. Everybody has always needed him to be the one who carried on, and for their sakes he always has.

"Nobody is that strong," Owen says, sitting down next to Jack. "And you know what? Nobody should have to be. Look, I admit I'm rubbish at the whole taking about feelings and stuff, but if you need to, and don't want to bother Tosh or do the baring your soul thing with Ianto, I guess I'm just saying I'm here, alright?"

Jack swallows back tears, surprised and touched that Owen would offer to do something that is obviously outside his comfort zone.

He's not sure if he'll ever take up Owen's offer, but knowing that it's there does, in some small way, help.

0x0x0x0

Morning drifts into afternoon, with boredom finally winning out over worry as Jack's prevailing mood.

He doesn't feel tired enough to be able to go back to sleep yet, and he's read the book that Tosh had given him the previous evening. Which only really leaves getting up and finding something to do.

The only problem with that is that it requires walking about, something which he's found still leaves him feeling rather shaky and breathless, a Although he's sure he could make it to the breakroom if he takes it steady.

A lot of the weakness he suspects is down to the fact that he's eaten very little for the last few days, and most of what he has has comprised of Owen's nutrient drinks and some toast. Despite that he doesn't feel particularly hungry, but he knows that's down to his stomach having got used to very little food.

Jack is still trying to decide whether getting up and getting some proper food might actually help, when there's a knock at the door. The knock is closely followed by Ianto saying, "Jack, are you awake?"

"Awake and bored."

Ianto walks in, a towel over his arm, and carrying a jug and a bowl.

Jack looks at the bowl with a bemused expression, before asking, "Has Owen sent you to give me a bed bath?"

"No." Ianto says putting the jug and bowl down on the table by the bed. "I just thought you might like the chance to freshen up a bit."

"Are you trying to say I smell?"

"I like to think I'm a little more tactful than that," Ianto says, with a small smile. "I find that when I've been ill that getting cleaned up helps me feel better."

Jack rubs a hand along the week or so worth of stubble on his chin. It would nice to get rid of it.

Ianto takes a disposable razor and a small bottle of shaving gel from the bowl and puts them on the table next to it. "I didn't want to search through your things to see if you'd got one, and I had a spare bought at the spaceport that I've not used, so it seemed sensible to let you have it."

"Thank you," Jack says. He knows that there is one somewhere amongst the things he brought with him on the Ariadne, but even he's not sure where it is. Or if he's honest how well it works – he'd been mostly using the ones in the hotels and motels on the planets he'd been on.

"At least it doesn't seem to grow too fast," Ianto says, "If I left mine for a week I think the crew would be reporting a stray yeti on board."

"Tried to grow a moustache once," Jack says, with an amused smile. "Summer 1917. All the guys in the Royal Flying Corp had them. After three months and with what looked like a dead caterpillar stuck to my face I gave up."

"I'm sure it wasn't that bad," Ianto says, trying not to laugh.

"Oh it was." Jack grins at the memory of Billy Wilson teasing him about. "My co-pilot reckoned that if we could have got enough pictures of it we could have patented it as a new weapon. Everybody who saw it would be too busy laughing to fight."

Ianto laughs. "You really are starting to feel better, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I am." Looking at the shaving things, Jack asks, "I don't suppose you've got a mirror?"

"No, sorry. I couldn't find one," Ianto says apologetically. "Well not one that wasn't attached to a wall in the showers."

"Guess I'll have to skip it then," Jack says, regretfully. He knows he could probably just about manage without, but accidentally cutting his face when it'll take a while to heal doesn't hold any appeal.

"I could do it for you, if you want?"

"If you're sure," Jack says a little doubtfully, not wanting Ianto to think that he has to do it.

"I wouldn't have offered if I weren't," Ianto points out.

"I prefer a straight razor myself," Ianto says, opening the shaving gel. "But they didn't have any of those. I'll have to find somewhere that sells them once we get to Earth."

"You didn't fancy something a bit more up to date?" Jack asks knowing that it would have probably been more difficult to find something like this in shops around the spaceport than something with a bit more technology behind it.

"No." Ianto shakes his head. "Putting an alien device with either blades or lasers in it that close to my throat really doesn't seem like a good way to start the day."

"I suppose there is that."

They lapse into comfortable silence as Ianto carefully shaves away the week's worth of stubble.

"I've been thinking," Ianto says, putting down the razor, and handing Jack a towel.

"That doesn't sound good." Jack wipes the last traces of foam from his face.

"About what I'd said, about not working with you and not staying in Cardiff."

"And what have you decided?" Jack asks, trying not to sound too hopeful, just in case he's wrong.

"That I've changed my mind." He runs a hand through his hair, looking stressed. "It's not going to always be easy seeing you every day, remembering my Jack, but being away from you, worrying about how you are and knowing that I won't be there if you need me will be worse."

"You never told Owen or Tosh, did you?"

"No," Ianto admits. "The more I thought about it the more I realised I couldn't do it. Working for Torchwood is lonely enough without cutting yourself off from the friends that you do have."

"I know," Jack says sadly. He's seen far too many people over the years lose so much more than their lives to Torchwood.

"I should get rid of this." Ianto gestures at the bowl of now cold and rather hair filled water, looking for a way out of this particular part of the conversation. "I can come straight back, or I could get us some food, if you want. We could talk."

There's a slightly nervous eagerness to Ianto's voice that makes Jack wonder just what it is that Ianto wants to talk about. "That would be good."

Ianto smiles. "I'll try to find us something nice."

0x0x0x0

Jack is still waiting for Ianto to return when the ship shudders and the engines abruptly cut out.

Lying in bed, tension growing, he waits for Celesti's voice to come over the intercom telling them that it's nothing to worry about, that it's just the electrical systems or the solar couplings that are playing up again.

Long seconds drag out before the static crackle that always seems to precede an announcement breaks the silence. _"Looks like we've got company, folks. Seems like our dead drug grower's friends are here to collect their cargo, and they don't seem to want any witnesses."_

There's a noise that Jack recognises as laser fire hitting the Ariadne's hull, and Celesti swears, _"So get your arses over to the weapons locker, arm up and go to the airlocks. I'll keep you posted."_

The announcement is barely over when Jack hears the swoosh-clunk of a nearby door opening and closing.

There's no way of knowing for certain who it is, but Jack suspects that it's Ianto.

The ship shakes again, the lights flickering as another volley of laser fire strikes its hull.

Taking as deep a breath as he can, Jack gets out of bed, determined to get to the weapons locker and assist in any way he can.

Frustrated at not having healed yet, and knowing that running is out of the question, Jack leans against the wall for support as he walks as quickly as he can.

The ship shudders again as makes his way along the corridor, a series of metallic clangs echoing dully through the ship.

Docking clamps.

Gritting his teeth, Jack tries to increase his speed, knowing that they'll be on board within a matter of minutes.

Cold sweat beading on his forehead, and breathing starting to wheeze, Jack pushes himself on until he finally reaches the weapons locker room.

"Didn't expect to see you here," Pol says as Jack stumbles through the door. "You look like crap."

Jack manages half hearted smile. "At least I still look better than I feel."

Pol shakes his head. "You think you're up to a fight?"

"I don't think they're going to give us much of a choice." Jack staggers as the ship gives another lurch, having to cling to the side of the door so he doesn't fall down.

"You might be right there." Pol gives him a grim smile.

"Have you seen Ianto?"

"Your man?" Pol says, handing Jack a gun.

"He's not mine." Jack checks the laser pistol. It looks like it has seen better days, but it'll have to do.

Pol gives him a slightly disbelieving look. "I saw him. He wanted a couple of guns, so I gave them to him and he went towards the engine room. He said he needed to find Tosh, to make sure she was armed too."

Jack nods. It sounds just the sort of thing that Ianto would do. "What's the quickest way there?"

"Down there." Pol points to a door in the corner of the room. "You think you can make it?"

Whether he can or not feels irrelevant at the moment, all Jack knows is that he's got to try. "I've got to find him."

"Alright," says Pol, patting Jack on the shoulder. "Keep safe."

"You too," Jack says hoping they can get through this without any loss of life.

The corridor that Pol said Ianto had taken seems endless, and Jack can feel his chest starting to ache, breath starting to wheeze from the effort, but he pushes himself on.

The sound of ship to ship laser fire has stopped, replaced by the occasional echoing sound of gun fire inside the ship.

The corridor turns a corner, and ahead Jack can see a body slumped on the ground.

His breath catches in his throat, legs nearly buckling under him, and he turns away, leaning against the wall for support.

As he gets closer, Jack recognises the body as that of the ships engineer, Kelda. She's sprawled on the floor, greenish blood pooled around her, her normally iridescent scales now as grey and lifeless as the metal gratings.

Bending down, he closes her eyes, torn between the relief that it isn't Ianto and the sadness of seeing yet another young, promising life taken away too soon.

Ahead there is the sound of more laser fire, the air burnt with the smell of ozone and scorched metal. Keeping his back flat against the wall, Jack cautiously approaches it.

The corridor opens into one of the cargo bays. On the other end of the bay, Ianto shoots off a couple of bursts of laser fire to keep the drug smugglers, Chelvosians, the same as had been on the Meridian Star, pinned down before ducking back behind a stack of crates hiding him from their view.

Protected by the cover of the crates, Ianto looks around, seeking a way out or a better shooting position. Seeing Jack, Ianto stares wide eyed at him for a moment, shocked to see him there. Recovering from it quickly, he nods at Jack, then gestures towards the two smugglers with his gun, before holding up three fingers.

Realising what Ianto wants him to do, Jack moves as close as can without letting the smugglers see him, and waits for his signal.

As soon as Jack is in position, Ianto holds up three fingers, then two, then one. Lowering his hand, he stands up, and takes aim in a single smooth movement.

Taken by surprise, Ianto's shot takes the taller of the two smugglers high in the chest, and he falls to the floor.

Taking aim, Jack presses the trigger. There's a popping noise followed by the smell of melting plastic and then the power display on his gun goes blank.

"Oh you've got to be kidding me," Jack says, glancing down at his gun. Jack hears rather than sees the second smuggler fire in the split second that he's looking away. Looking up he sees Ianto stagger and then fall limply to the floor.

"No!" It's torn from him, raw and desolate. Throwing his useless gun at the smuggler, Jack rushes him, blind fury driving him on.

Jack hits him with enough force than they are both carried to the floor. Blood is pounding in his ears and he can barely breathe, but Jack keeps up his attack. Kicking and punching, he lashes out indiscriminately, all the frustration, anger and loss he's kept inside coming out in a burst of mindless violence.

He stops only when his arms and legs feel too leaden to move, the smuggler is still beneath him.

Shaking with exhaustion, Jack rolls off of him and lies on the floor, listening to the sound of laser fire that's still echoing round the ship. He can't tell which side might be winning, and he hasn't got the energy to assist or to find out.

Even standing requires more energy that he's got, and Jack crawls across the floor to where Ianto is still lying where he'd fallen.

He has covered most of the distance when his arms give way, and he slumps forward onto the deck. Unable to manage crawling the last couple of feet to him, Jack reaches out his hand and curls his fingers through Ianto's.

"I'm sorry, 'm so so sorry," Jack slurs, before he passes out.

* * *

I know a bit of a cliff hanger, but everything will be fixed in the next part.


	10. Things Lost and Found Along the Way Chapter 10

**Title:** Things Lost and Found Along The Way (10/11)  
 **Rating:** pg13  
 **Characters/Pairings:** Jack. AU Ianto, Owen and Tosh. Owen/Tosh, and eventually Jack/Ianto

 **Contains:** Serious illness of an alien variety.  
 **Summary:** Travelling back to Earth with Ianto, Owen and Toshiko on board the freighter Ariadne, Jack has growing concerns that the glove he'd used to bring them into this universe has somehow affected him. He's still trying to deal with these worries on his own when they receive a distress call from another ship. A call which is about to change everything.  
 **A/N:** This is a sequel to 'The Spaces in Between.' which was a CoE sort of fix it. Any similarity to Miracle Day with regards to what is going on with Jack is totally accidental as this aspect of the fic had already been decided on last year. Updated weekly on Friday.

This part beta'd by mcparrot.

Jack wakes slowly, the return to consciousness gradual. Aches and pains register first, a dull throb in his side, the tug and pull of bruising around his eye, and the sharp sting of a split lip.

He tries to roll over, seeking a more comfortable position, the pillow under his head seeming oddly out of place for reasons he can't quite remember. Pain flares for a moment as he moves, jolting him fully awake. Memories flood back in a rush; stumbling breathless and dizzy down corridors, Kelda's dead eyes looking up at him, the sizzle of laser fire cutting the air, and Ianto lying motionless on the floor beside him.

A sob escapes him, and Jack keeps his eyes tightly closed, wanting to shut out reality, not ready to deal with it.

A hand grips his tightly. "Jack, please, it's alright. You're alright."

Jack opens his eyes to see Ianto sitting in the chair by his bed looking at him, a worried expression on his face. He looks pale, pain and tiredness seeming to radiate from him. The left sleeve of shirt has been cut off, the dressing around the top of his arm partially hidden by the sling which holds his arm across his chest.

"You're alive."

"Too sore not to be. So definitely alive," Ianto says, sounding a little out of it. "I didn't think I would be. Alive that is."

"I'm glad you are." Jack's voice cracks and he holds Ianto's hand a little tighter.

"I am too." Ianto laughs, then stops seeming confused at why he'd found it funny. "I think Owen must have given me the good stuff."

The dull ache in Jack's side becomes a sharp pain as he tries to sit up, and he gives up saying, "Maybe he could give me some of it too."

"Owen said you'd bruised your ribs," Ianto says, a look of concentration on his face as he tries to remember what he's been told. "He said he'd come back later. He's run off his feet at the minute."

"We won then." The fact that they are alive seems to suggest it, but Jack's learnt the hard way too many times never to take anything for granted.

"Yes." Ianto nods, looking relieved. "Tosh got the engines restarted, and sent an energy pulse along the hull of the ship. It dislodged their ship, and damaged their engines."

"Kelda is dead, isn't she?" Jack asks, hoping that he's wrong.

"Yes" Ianto says sadly. "Two of the smugglers too. Owen is working on Pol, I don't know if he'll make it."

Jack closes his eyes. He'd not known Kelda or Pol that well. But they'd seemed like good people, and Pol had been kind to him – even when he was scattering bits of cargo across the hold when his mind hadn't been on the job.

"Jack? Jack, are you okay?"

"Yeah." It's not exactly the truth, but knowing that Ianto, Owen and Tosh have survived, and that the danger has passed, helps. Opening his eyes again, Jack asks, "How are you?"

"I'll be alright. It's just a laser burn, Owen says that there'll be no permanent damage." He gives Jack a wry smile. "Just another scar to the collection."

"He's sure?"

"Apparently they can act a bit like a stun gun on some people, I guess I was unlucky."

"Or not," Jack says, trying and failing to put the alternative out of his mind. "If you hadn't gone down he'd have kept right on shooting."

Ianto shivers. "I suppose there is that."

They both lapse into silence, lost in their own thoughts.

The silence is broken by Owen letting himself into Jack's room. He looks at Ianto and says, "See I told you he'd be okay."

As soon as Owen speaks Ianto lets go of Jack's hand, a slightly self conscious look on his face. "So how's Pol?" Ianto asks, changing the subject.

"Looking a bit more hopeful," Owen says wearily, rubbing a hand across his eyes. "I've done what I can, and he's stable for now. At least the shot missed both of his stomachs. He'll need to get to a hospital to see if there's any long term damage though."

Turning to Jack, Owen says, "Alright, I'd better take a proper look at you now you're awake."

Owen quickly inspects the bruise round Jack's eye, the split lip and the bruises on his knuckles. "You're going to have a pretty stunning black eye for a while," he says. "But there's no real damage done."

Pulling back the bed covers, he pushes up the edge of Jack t-shirt.

Jack takes a sharp breath, flinching as Owen presses on the large bruise that covers a good portion his right side.

"Doesn't feel like there's anything broken," Owen says eventually. "Are you getting more pain in it than you think you should?"

"I don't think so." Jack's still not totally sure how much there should be, as after years of rapid healing, his memories of what normal healing should be are a little hazy.

"Okay then," Owen says letting go of Jack's t-shirt. "Now this is where I'd normally say take some painkillers and spend a few days taking it easy and you should be alright. But since you're on that advice already I'll just say keep doing it."

"Sounds like a plan," Jack says, grateful that Owen has stopped prodding him.

"You got off lightly compared to the other guy."

"I killed him?"

"No. But he's taken a right hammering." Owen puts the bed cover back in place. "So remind me never to piss you off."

"I wouldn't do that," Jack says quickly, hating the idea that Owen could think that beating somebody half to death with his bare hands is how he deals with problems.

Owen rolls his eyes. "I was joking."

"Well it wasn't very funny," Ianto mutters, mostly to himself.

"You know what your problem is?" Owen says to Ianto. "You don't have a sense of humour. Well that and the fact that you're knackered. So as your doctor I'm telling you to go and get some rest right now."

Ianto looks like he's about to argue, a frown forming on his face.

"He's right," Jack says. He can see how exhausted Ianto looks, the dark smudges beneath his eyes looking bruise like against skin that's almost grey with tiredness. "You can always come back here later."

"I suppose I could try," Ianto says doubtfully.

"If you can't, I can give you something. If you want," Owen says, his usual sarcasm replaced with genuine concern.

"No." Ianto shakes his head. "I'd rather not."

"Okay then." Owen heads back over to the door. "I've got a couple of things I still need to do, but I'll come back later on check how both of you are."

Owen opens the door to leave, and nearly walks into Tosh.

"I thought I'd find you here," Tosh says. She smiles at them, looking tired but relieved. There's a smudge of grime across her cheek, spark holes in her blouse, and a pair of welding goggles on her head.

Owen puts his arm around her, and kisses her. "Nothing's wrong, is it?"

"No, I just came to say I've finished with the engines for the night."

"In that case," Owen says with a grin. "I think we should go have a shower and then have lots of life affirming sex."

Tosh smiles and laughs, hugging him back. "I'm sure they wanted to know that."

Looking at them, and at Ianto's half amused, half embarrassed smile, Jack laughs, relieved that life is getting back to normal.

x0x0x0x

It's the middle of the night, and the ship quiet except for the ever present low thrum of the engines, as Jack makes his way back to his room.

He's nearly there when he notices Ianto standing at the end of the corridor by one of the portholes. Dressed in the same clothes he'd been wearing hours earlier, his shoulders hunched, and his arm still in the sling, Ianto watches the stars stream past.

Walking over to him, Jack says, "You're up late."

"I could say the same thing."

"Call of nature. You on the other hand don't look like you've been to bed."

"I couldn't sleep." Ianto sighs, but doesn't turn to face Jack.

"You want to tell me what's wrong?"

"We'll be on Earth this time tomorrow," Ianto says his voice devoid of any enthusiasm.

Worried now about just what's going on in Ianto's head, Jack asks, "You say that like it's a bad thing."

Ianto sighs again. "It's not bad. It just changes everything."

Jack frowns, and leans back against the wall next to Ianto. "Why do I feel like I'm only getting half the story here?"

"I'm not sure there is one," he says miserably. "Not one that makes any sense."

"Try me."

"I don't know where to start. It's just that I…" Ianto stops, and turns to face Jack. "Kiss me."

Ianto says it so quietly, so suddenly, that Jack isn't sure that he's heard him right, and he gives him a questioning look.

Stepping forward so there's almost no space between them, Ianto says, "I said I want you to kiss me. I've just got so much going on in my mind, things that I need to work out, and I think this will help."

"You're sure?"

"Yes."

Tentative at first, Jack curls his hand against Ianto's cheek, drawing him in closer. He can feel Ianto's breath warm against his skin, and Jack closes his eyes as their lips meet. It's not a passionate kiss, but it's certainly not chaste either, as Jack feels Ianto's tongue against his own.

Pulling back from the kiss, Ianto touches his fingers to his lips, a conflicted look on his face. "It's not the same."

Jack smiles sadly. He's not sure what he'd hope would come out of this

"But that's not a bad thing," Ianto says, sounding like he's only just come to that conclusion himself. "Because it shouldn't be the same. If I'm with you, I have to know it is you. Anything less wouldn't fair on either of us. We can't go into this chasing ghosts."

"Why now?" Jack asks. It's barely three weeks since Ianto found him in the street near the space port.

"Because we don't have forever, and today just reinforced that," Ianto says running a hand through his hair. "If I don't take the chance now I might never get the opportunity again. When you were sick, I thought about it over and over. And then when I thought…" He stops and takes a shaky breath. "I came to, and you were there on the floor next to me. I thought you were dead. You were so still, and the blood…" he trails off.

"It wasn't mine, well not much of it any way," Jack says reassuringly.

"I thought it was," Ianto says quietly, his eyes haunted. "I thought I'd lost you. I can't…"

"It's alright." Jack steps in closer, trying to calm him down.

"No, it's not. I'm sick and tired of being scared all the time," Ianto says, angry at himself. "Scared that this won't work out, and scared that it will. Scared that I'll lose you, or that I'll forget him. And I'm fucking terrified that I won't be able to handle life on your Earth. I know what happens to people who fall through the Rift from different times. I know how few of them make it in the end. I'm just like them now. And…"

"Ianto."

"And so are Owen and Tosh. If anything happens to them, I…" He stops, covering his eyes with his hand.

Jack can see he's getting more and more worked up, everything that's been buried just below the surface since they first met coming to a head. Jack does the only thing he can think of. He kisses Ianto again.

He doesn't respond, instead going still and tense in Jack's arms.

For a moment Jack worries that he's misjudged it, that Ianto is going to push him away. Then he starts to shake, tears falling, everything he's been bottling up coming out in a rush.

There had been a few silent tears shed when he'd first told him about how his Jack had died, how his whole world had died. This outpouring of grief, Jack suspects, has been a long time coming.

Breaking the kiss, Ianto presses his faces against Jack's shoulder, as he sags against him.

Knowing that he's not going to be able to hold Ianto up for long, his muscles already feeling tired and achy, Jack settles for a controlled sink to the floor.

Kneeling on the floor together, Jack holds Ianto close, and lets him cry. Trying to quieten him, to get the tears to stop before they're ready is, Jack's sure, the last thing that he needs. Sometimes just letting it all out is the only thing left to do.

Slowly the ragged sobs ebb away, and Jack can feel Ianto start to relax, his breathing evening out. He's not sure how long they've been there, but getting off the cold metal floor, before Ianto falls asleep seem like a good idea. Keeping his tone light, Jack says, "I don't know about you, but my ass is going numb."

"We can't have that, can we?" Ianto says, his voice muffled against Jack's shoulder. It sounds forced, although there is a genuine undercurrent of amusement to it.

"Definitely not. It could fall off."

"Now you're just being ridiculous."

Jack just laughs.

"Right pair we are," Ianto says, as they both groan as they get up, bruises and tired limbs protesting at the movement.

Jack smiles, trying to keep the mood light. "Yeah, but I bet we still look good."

They take their time walking the short distance to Jack's room. Once they are inside Jack asks, "How you feeling?"

"Cold," Ianto says, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "And a bit stupid really. I shouldn't be putting you in a position where you need to deal with me when I'm like this. It's not fair on you."

"You'd do the same for me," Jack says, taking his greatcoat from where it's hung on a peg on the wall. Putting it round Ianto's shoulders he adds, "You already have."

Ianto nods non-committally.

Sitting down beside him, Jack asks, "When did you last sleep?"

Ianto frowns thinking for a moment before answering. "I got a few hours last night."

"How many is a few?" Jack asks, remembering when conversations such as this with his Ianto had almost been common place, the first few weeks after Tosh and Owen had died being the worst.

"Three or four." He leans against Jack, eyes closing. "It doesn't matter."

"It does to me." Jack takes hold of Ianto's hand, trying to reinforce the idea that he doesn't have to be alone. "I mean a full night."

"At the motel," Ianto says, eyes downcast. "Although there have been some that have come close."

The only nights when you weren't alone, Jack thinks sadly, wishing that Ianto had told him sooner. Threading his fingers through Ianto's, Jack says, "Stay here tonight. Stay with me."

Ianto looks down at their linked hands, and sniffs back more threatening tears, his voice rough as he says, "Thank you."

The bed isn't really designed to sleep two, and it takes a few minutes to find a position that allows them both to rest in any degree of comfort. Eventually though, with Ianto lying against Jack's un-bruised side, his injured arm resting across Jack's chest, they find one which works.

Warm and secure together, they fall asleep.


	11. Things Lost and Found Along the Way Chapter 11

**Title:** Things Lost and Found Along The Way (11/11)  
 **Rating** : pg13  
 **Characters/Pairings:** Jack. AU Ianto, Owen and Tosh. Owen/Tosh, and eventually Jack/Ianto  
 **Contains:** Serious illness of an alien variety.  
 **Summary:** Travelling back to Earth with Ianto, Owen and Toshiko on board the freighter Ariadne, Jack has growing concerns that the glove he'd used to bring them into this universe has somehow affected him. He's still trying to deal with these worries on his own when they receive a distress call from another ship. A call which is about to change everything.  
 **A/N:** This is a sequel to The Spaces in Between. Which was a CoE sort of fix it. Any similarity to Miracle Day with regards to what is going on with Jack is totally accidental as this aspect of the fic had already been decided on last year.

* * *

This part beta'd by Mcparrot.

Jack wakes as Ianto tries to roll over, the lack of space preventing him from doing so.

"Didn't mean to wake you," Ianto says apologetically. Sitting up, he groans, the movement jarring his arm.

"That's okay. You stay there." Jack leans across Ianto to reach the bottle of painkillers that Owen has left on the bedside table. His ribs protest as he does, the bruising starting to ache now he's no longer lying still.

"It probably would have been easier for me to reach them," Ianto points out as Jack awkwardly moves back to his side of the bed.

"These should help a bit," Jack says shaking some tablets each out of the bottle. He hands two to Ianto, before taking the other two himself.

Sitting side by side in bed, they wait for the painkillers to start working.

After a few minutes, Jack slowly stands up. The discomfort is a dull background ache, mainly confined to the deepest area of bruising on his ribs.

"I should probably go and get a change of clothes before Owen spots me, and wants to know if I've slept," Ianto says, but makes no effort to get up.

Jack looks at him for a moment. Ianto's trousers still look okay; it's only really the shirt that has seen better days. Going over to the locker in the corner of the room, Jack takes out one of his spare shirts.

"If you don't want to risk running into Owen on the way back to your room you can wear this. People might talk though," Jack says with a laugh, offering Ianto one of his shirts. "You turning up wearing my clothes."

"I hope not." Ianto gets up, and takes the shirt from Jack.

"Why?"

"Because I don't want Owen or Tosh knowing about..." He hesitates, looking for the right word, before continuing. "Well, us, I suppose is the best description. Not yet, anyway."

"Why?" Jack asks again, surprised and a little hurt. It's really not what he'd expected Ianto to say. "We're not doing anything wrong."

"I know." Ianto sighs. "It's just that it's going to be hard enough to work this out between us, to know where it's going, without having to deal with well meaning questions." He sighs again, turning away from Jack. "I know that sounds awful, I don't mean it like that. I really do appreciate that they look out for me. But I need this to be something we do for us. To let it succeed or fail without other people pushing us in one direction or another."

"So you're not ashamed then?" Jack says, stepping in close behind Ianto, putting an arm around him.

Ianto shakes his head. "Jack, I could never be ashamed of you. Frustrated, annoyed maybe, and perhaps even downright angry, but I don't think I could ever be ashamed of trying to have a relationship with you."

It's actually a relief, Jack finds, that Ianto hadn't used the word love. It's too soon for either of them, both in terms of how long they've know each other and of much time has passed since they lost they lost their own Jack and Ianto.

"I know it's a lot to ask," Ianto says, turning so that he's facing Jack again. "But could we at least try?"

"Alright," Jack says a little reluctantly. He understands why Ianto has asked him to do it, and knows that it might actually be the best thing for them, at least for little while, but the secrecy, the idea that they are starting this with a lie, really doesn't sit well with him.

"Thank you. It won't be for long, a week or two at most." Ianto smiles, grateful that Jack is going to go along with it. "Now, how about we get changed and then have some breakfast?"

"Now that," Jack says, giving Ianto a very brief kiss. "Sounds like a great idea."

The walk down to the breakroom takes a while. The combination of his not quite healed lungs and not wanting to breathe too deeply as it hurts his bruised ribs, leaves Jack feeling a little breathless despite their slow pace.

Breakfast is nearly over by the time they get there, and sit down at the same table as Owen and Tosh.

If Owen or Tosh notice that Ianto is wearing one of his shirts rather than one of his own they remain silent on the matter. It's something which, for Ianto's sake, Jack is grateful for.

"How are you two feeling?" Owen asks, once Jack and Ianto have helped themselves to food and drink.

"Tired, a bit sore, but not too bad all things considered," Ianto says, then takes a bite of his toast before Owen can ask any more questions.

"A lot better than I was," Jack says. Because while the sore ribs are an annoyance, and there's still the occasional lingering cough, he feels a lot more like his old self than he had a few days ago. A few more days, provided nothing else happens and Jack's confident he'll be completely well again.

"I was going to drop by after breakfast and give this back to you," Tosh says, taking Jack's vortex manipulator out of the pocket of the overalls she's wearing. "I went to talk to Vran earlier, she says we're close enough to Earth now that the ships comms will work for contacting Gwen."

Jack buckles it back around his wrist, the familiar leather cuff feeling heavy after several days of not wearing it. "I'd better call her, give her the coordinates for where we're going to teleport in."

"I've already done it," Tosh says, sounding a little uncertain of how Jack will react to this information. "I wasn't sure how early you'd wake, or how you'd be feeling when you did, and it didn't seem fair to keep her waiting."

"Taking the initiative, I like it," Jack says with a smile. "So when are we arriving?"

"It should be about four thirty this afternoon."

"We've got ages then?" Owen says, looking at the digital clock on the wall of the breakroom which reads nine fifteen. "I could've had a lie in."

"Not really, that's four thirty in Cardiff," Tosh explains. "The Ariadne runs on Central Sto time, so we've actually got just under two and a half hours. I should really go and run a few checks on the engine in a minute, make sure the repairs will hold until they reach Polpaxi."

"I suppose I'd better start packing," Ianto says, with a quick glance down at the sling. "I think it might take a while."

"There are a couple of things I need to sort out too," Jack says, looking over at Celesti who has just come in, and sat down at a table on the other side of the room.

"Alright, but take it easy," Owen says. Looking at Ianto he says, "Before you start fussing over how you're going to get everything packed, I want to get that arm checked again, and get a new dressing on it."

Jack waits until they are gone before going over to Celesti.

"You're not going to have any trouble with the port authorities when you reach Polpaxi, are you? For letting us leave before they've checked out everybody's version of events," Jack asks, sitting down opposite her.

"I've got it sorted," Celesti says, sounding tired, but relieved. "The Judoon provide most of the policing for this quadrant, and they're running a big crack down on anybody dealing drugs at the moment. They're still ticked off over that extortion business the Melegrids tried to pull on Earth last year. I reckon they wouldn't have been too fussed if we'd handed all the smugglers over to them dead."

"Melegrids?" Jack asks, wondering if this is something that he's left Gwen to deal with on her own.

"Pug ugly three headed things with bad attitudes for the most part." She looks at Jack, curious. "You must be about the only person who hasn't heard about it. It made a couple of the pan galactic news networks, and Earth doesn't usually get much of a mention."

The realisation that Celesti is talking about the 4-5-6 hits hard, and Jack closes his eyes. Feeling sick and angry, he grips the edge of the table, knuckles going white. Whatever the Judoon are doing it's all far too little far too late.

"Ah shit, said the wrong thing here, haven't I?"

"We didn't know what they were called," Jack says hoarsely. He opens his eyes, although his grip on the table doesn't lessen. "Not the first time, not this time. I lost…" He stops, "Guess it's all in the past now."

"It don't stop it hurting though, does it?" she says sadly. "I don't know what they did to you, but I'm sorry, you seem like a good guy." Celesti pats Jack on the shoulder. "I hope everything works out for you. I really do."

"It'd be nice to catch a break once in a while," Jack says with a wan smile.

"Ain't that the truth," Celesti says wearily. Getting up from her seat she says, "I'd better go see how Pol's doing."

"How is he?" Jack knows that Ianto hadn't thought Pol's chances were that good, although Owen had been more optimistic.

"He's a tough old goat," she says affectionately, although it's clear she's still worried about him. "He'll be okay eventually, we've been through worse back planetside a few times. It's how we met, hauling each other's wounded asses out of a fire fight."

Jack can think of a few of his own past relationships that have started in the same way. He hope for Celesti's sake that she and Pol get longer together than he did in his.

Jack stays at the table after Celesti has left, trying to get his thoughts in order before going to pack.

He wonders if the Judoon's crack down, which has probably been ordered by the Shadow Proclamation, is something that the Doctor has had his hand in. It would seem in keeping with his silent goodbye in the bar. Another attempt at putting things right or at least trying to get things to a point where they are less likely to go wrong.

The Doctor setting him up with Alonso in the bar had been confusing. But having later learn that the exploration ship he'd have otherwise left on was lost in a black hole, which would have mean an eternity of dying and reviving without hope of rescue, he suspects that the Doctor did it to keep him safe, rather than in a misguided attempt at matchmaking.

Eventually, Jack is the last one left in the breakroom, and after one final look around he heads back to his room.

0x0x0x0

Stood on the teleport pad in the main cargo hold, his greatcoat on and a holdall containing his few possessions at his feet, Jack waits for Vran to tell them that everything is ready.

Walking over to him, Celesti shakes his hand. "If there's ever anything any of you need, call and I'll see what I can do."

"The same goes for you."

 _"I've got the teleport coordinates set, so I'm ready when you are,"_ Vran says over the comm.

Looking at Owen, Tosh and Ianto, Jack says, "Ready to see Earth?"

"Am I ever," Owen says, taking hold of Tosh's hand. "Proper food and beer here I come."

Tosh laughs. "I think I'm looking forward to fresh air and a real bath more."

Moving a little closer to Jack, Ianto just smiles, nervous and hopeful at the same time.

"Good to go?" Celesti asks Jack.

Jack nods."Yeah."

"They're ready, Vran, let's get them on their way." Stepping back from the transport pad, Celesti raises her hand in a salute.

Returning the salute, Jack watches as the cargo hold around them starts to shimmer with a hazy blue light, before the walls suddenly fade into nothingness.

A split second later they appear on a windswept hillside in Pennarth over looking Cardiff Bay. The late autumn sun is low on the horizon, the sky streaked with orange and gold where it meets the ocean, while above them gulls wheel and screech in the cool breeze.

Jack can see tears in Ianto's eyes as he looks out at Cardiff, a look of amazement on his face, while Owen hugs Tosh tightly, nearly lifting her off the ground. Seeing Earth again, when your own has been destroyed, he suspects, must be rather overwhelming.

"Jack!"

Jack turns to see Gwen hurrying over to them.

Reaching Jack, Gwen puts her arms round him and hugs him tight.

It's not exactly comfortable, as even with his faster than normal human healing, his ribs are still sore, but Jack doesn't care. "Now that's what I call a welcome."

Something hard under her coat presses against him, and Jack tenses. Surprised and more than a little concerned Jack says, "You're armed."

Gwen steps back a bit, the look in her eyes daring him to challenge her about. "I don't leave the house without it, not any more."

"I'm sorry." Jack says, hating that Gwen feels that this is necessary. He doesn't want Gwen to have changed, to be as much a stranger as Owen, Tosh and Ianto are. "I never wanted it to be like this, not for you."

"Don't be." She smiles, trying to reassure him, although there's a brittle edge to it. "It's not because of you. I have a family to protect now, and I'll do whatever I need too to keep them safe."

"I know," Jack says wearily. He's seen Torchwood take too many good people other years, changing them, making them too quick to kill. He'd wanted to take Torchwood away from that, make it something more.

Not wanting to talk or think about it any more, Jack nods towards the mint green people carrier that's parked at the bottom of the slope. "Really?"

"Long story," Gwen says, waving a hand at it. "But the short version is the new SUV is still on order and this is the only thing the car hire company had big enough on this short notice."

Jack grins. "Good, I'd hate to think I had to drive that thing all at the time. I've got an image to maintain." He's not sure what Owen, Ianto and Tosh will make of it, as the cars in their world had been a product of engineering around the problem of scarce petrol, with vehicles powered using coal gas being the most common.

Having given Jack and Gwen a few minutes to talk, Ianto, Owen and Tosh walk over to join them. Ianto holds out his hand to Gwen, "Pleased to meet you, I'm Ianto Jones. We spoke on the video link."

Jack can see the conflicted look on Gwen's face, as she shakes Ianto's hand, as she tries to remind herself that the people now standing in front of her aren't the same people who'd she'd known, loved and worked with little more than a year ago.

Leaving Gwen to talk to Ianto, Owen and Tosh, knowing that this first introduction is something that they really need to do for themselves, Jack walks over to the edge of the cliff and looks out across the bay. It's too far away to see anything in detail, but he can just make out the curved shape of the Millennium Centre now that the lights are coming on as the evening closes in.

Greatcoat catching in the breeze off the ocean, Jack closes his eyes. He can smell the tang of salt from the sea, the fumes of cars and dozens of different chemicals, all overlaid with just a hint of Rift energy, combining to make up the familiar air of 21st century Cardiff.

The melancholy mood is broken, when behind him he hears Owen exclaim, "What! With nothing but a daffodil?"

Jack smiles, and turns back to them, to his team. He's home.

* * *

 **A/N** So that's it for now, but the story will be continued in a new fic in which Jack, Ianto, Owen, Tosh and Gwen try to settle in as a team, deal with what the Rift throws at them and get the Hub rebuilt.


End file.
